ForkLog: Bank of Russia Leads New Blockchain Consortium

The Bank of Russia partnered with ten biggest national banks to create “Fintech”, a consortium to implement financial innovations and trial blockchain technology.

According to Olga Skorobogatova, the deputy chairwoman of the regulator, the consortium is incorporated as an association.

“We have made the decision, I have told about that before, but now this has a form of particular agreements between ten major participants. We are creating the consortium we were going to create,” she said at Finnopolis 2016 in Kazan.

As implementation of distributed technologies would require the regulation framework to change not only on the Central Bank’s side, the association’s expert council will include representatives for ministries and other government entities to harmonize the required changes at early stages. This would allow them to get implemented right away without two or three years of waiting for the amendments to become enforceable.

According to Skorobogatova, the consortium would incorporate permanent members to finance its development. There also will be associate members that could benefit from the consortium’s work. The founders of the consortium have recently tested Masterchain, a transactions exchange protocol. Then the banks will have to agree on what blockchain-based product or service they would be jointly launching, and then determine applicable standards.

“Once market players formulate their requirements for the product, we’ll be able to specify the implementation terms for the platform. Development of goods and services on Masterchain is a separate project we’ll be covering within the association. Hopefully, we’ll have particular projects soon,” Skorobogatova added.

The Bank of Russia has first announced its plans to create a consortium last summer.

Yesterday Olga Skorobogatova stated that the Central Bank has no pronounced position as to cryptocurrencies, yet it isstudying pros and cons of creating a government-controlled digital currency. 

Original publication: http://forklog.net/bank-of-russia-leads-new-blockchain-consortium/