The Central Bank of Russia published a draft of amendments to Regulation 383-P “Funds transfer rules”, which will allow Russian financial organizations to use blockchain technology to make settlements from 2019. The implementation of blockchain will accelerate execution of operations and reduce the costs of credit organizations by 20%. The Central Bank will enable the parties to the deal to use digital letters of credit and smart contracts. “FinTech” association explained that the tools will appear on the “Masterchane” blockchain-platform already this year, and next year the technology will be available for everyone. According to the estimates of the Central Bank, switching to a digital letter of credit will reduce the average duration of transactions from 18 to 8 days, which will also affect the reduction of risks and costs. At the moment, banks use ordinary letters of credit for trade transactions. According to T. Ivashkova, head of the department of documentary operations and trade finance of Raiffeisenbank, this tool is complex and expensive as a safe trade transaction. The usage of blockchain technology will significantly increase the speed of transaction, reduce the cost of provision and storage of paper documents, as well as reduce the risks of falsification and loss of documents, agrees VTB. |
