Blockchain is the answer to Russia’s settlement issues, banking exec says

cointelegraph.com:

The adoption of blockchain is the right direction for Russia to solve its current settlement issues, according to an executive at Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank.Blockchain technology has matured over the past few years to offer new capabilities that potentially enable Russia to create more efficient payment systems, Sberbank first deputy chairman Alexander Vedyakhin said.On March 14, Vedyakhin took part in the meeting of Russia’s Federation Council on the budget and financial markets committee, highlighting the promising future of blockchain in Russia, the local news agency Interfax reported.According to Vedyakhin, distributed ledger technology (DLT) is a great foundation for a new payment system due to its decentralized nature and privacy-enabling features.

He stated:Vedyakhin added that Sberbank is currently actively exploring the implementation of blockchain technology for payments. “We are confident that Sberbank and other colleagues from the central bank will find this solution,” he stated, expressing confidence that blockchain will become more relevant in 2023.

The Sberbank executive said:In his speech, Vedyakhin also noted that blockchain technology has rapidly evolved over the past few years, with developers managing to find solutions to issues, such  limited scalability and limited privacy.

These blockchain issues have been solved so far, he added.According to Mark Smargon, CEO of the permissionless public ledger project Fuse Network, there is no technical reason preventing Russia from creating its own blockchain-based system.“Major adoption by mainstream businesses and their consumers is right around the corner thanks to recent developments in scaling and privacy technology, notably on EVM [Ethereum Virtual