Tinkoff Investments, the online brokerage arm of Tinkoff, one of the largest banks in Russia, reported that it has projects related to cryptocurrencies in the face of increasing demands from its customers.
Dmitry Panchenko, head of Tinkoff Investments, said in an interview with Russian local news agency TASS that the company has projects related to cryptocurrency investments, but it is too early to talk about them.
Although the Central Bank of Russia does not allow financial institutions to provide crypto investment services, the company ignores these regulations and conducts various research and development on crypto-related services.
President of Tinkoff Investments, He noted that companies like international payments giant PayPal are looking into crypto products and crypto-friendly apps like Revolut and Robinhood.
We look at what’s happening in the world and what’s happening at Robinhood, Revolut, PayPal. We see this evolution, but it is not happening in Russia.
Emphasizing that Russian citizens are already trading crypto on foreign platforms, Panchenko stated that the Russian government should be given the authority to provide crypto services to local financial institutions.
One way or another, people are exposed to crypto and they do it outside the country. It would potentially be correct to provide such services within the Russian legal system. This is not legally possible today, but the issue needs to be discussed and investigated in more depth.
Earlier this year, Russia banned the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment after introducing the legal definition of cryptocurrencies under the Digital Financial Assets (DFA) law.
Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev recently stated that Russia has no policy to ban the trading of cryptocurrencies on foreign platforms and expects restrictions on the use of digital currencies in Russia to be relaxed.