Sberbank Becomes First Russian Bank Cleared to Custody Crypto

Sberbank can now keep and move digital assets for its customers.

Russia's largest bank said the Bank of Russia gave it approval for record-keeping of digital currency and for facilitating transfers of those assets. The regulator also added it to a new register of digital depositories, which makes Sberbank the first bank in the country approved to custody digital assets. Bitcoin and other, smaller cryptocurrencies were included.

The interesting part is not the permission itself. It is where the permission is meant to happen.

What Sberbank Is Actually Cleared to Do

A digital depository is not a crypto exchange, and the difference matters. The Bank of Russia describes depositories as a place to record and transfer digital currencies and digital rights, and to grant clients access to the identifier addresses where those assets are recorded. They are not venues where anyone buys or sells.

Exchanges sit on the other side of that line. They can buy and sell digital currency in their own name and at their own expense, outside organized trading venues. So Sberbank's new status is a back-office job with a customer-facing front door, not trading.

The regulator frames digital depositories as working on the same principles as traditional securities depositories, right down to the fact that the central bank keeps the register of them.

The Crypto Desk Is the Banking App You Already Open

Customers will reach their crypto through SberBank Online, SberInvestments and the SberBusiness online banking platform. Sberbank said no new apps or platforms will be released to hold it.

The bank's own explanation is that digital currency transactions are moving into familiar banking interfaces, with standard customer identification, transaction monitoring and reporting attached. That is the whole positioning in one line: crypto that arrives where the customer already is, carrying the paperwork a bank already does well.

The rollout is deliberately small at first. Before any mass launch, Sberbank will offer the service to a limited number of customers, then widen it.

Who Gets In, and What Is Still Banned

The doors are not open at the same width for everyone.

• Non-qualified investors can buy bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether USDT only, capped at 300,000 rubles a year through one intermediary.
• Qualified investors can buy any cryptocurrency traded on exchange or over-the-counter markets, with no limit.
• Exporters and importers may pay with cryptocurrency in cross-border settlements without restrictions.

Inside Russia, paying with crypto is a different story. Using digital assets as a means of payment or as legal tender is still banned, and crypto payments have been prohibited there since 2022.

VTB Is on Both Lists

Sberbank is not alone on the register. The central bank added VTB to the digital depository register too, and VTB also made the separate register of organizations that can exchange cryptocurrency, according to our report on the first set of registrations.

VTB has spelled out its own calendar. Deputy CEO Vitaly Sergeichuk said:

We expect to open access to trading in digital currencies for a wide range of investors via VTB My Investments and directly via the bank's crypto exchange as early as November and December 2026 respectively.

Alongside them, the depository register includes JSC Voltari, LLC Cloud Infrastructure and Atomyze. The crypto exchange register includes LLC Zefir, LLC Sistema Crypto and T-Invest Lab.

The Registers Behind the Approval

The admission rules came into force on October 5, 2026, after registration with the Russian Ministry of Justice. They cover how digital depositories, cryptocurrency exchanges and operators of information systems are admitted to the market, and how the registers are kept.

The central bank's July draft set the size of the gate for depositories: minimum equity of 50 million to 250 million rubles, depending on whether a firm works with open distributed ledgers or provides post-trade settlement.

Underneath all of this sits the law on digital currencies and digital rights, which took effect on September 1, 2026 and created a framework for crypto circulation through existing exchanges, brokers and trustees, and now also through crypto exchanges and digital depositories. Firms admitted first are working under transitional provisions and have to be fully in line with the new requirements by September 1, 2027. From July 1, 2027, illegal intermediary activity in the crypto market is planned to carry penalties similar to those for illegal banking.

December 1 Hangs on Paperwork

Sberbank said on October 5 that it applied for digital depository status so it could run digital currency circulation inside interfaces clients already use. It planned to launch its first crypto products on December 1, 2026.

That date is not fully in the bank's hands. Sberbank said it is technically ready, but the start depends on the regulatory base being ready and on receiving the status. After that, it plans test trades for a limited circle of clients. At the start, it is talking about bitcoin, Ethereum and the dollar-pegged stablecoin USDT.

The US Comparison Stays Unverified

How this stacks up against US custody rules cannot be settled from what we could check here. The American framework's own paperwork, including the interpretive letters setting conditions for bank crypto custody, was not opened for this piece, so those conditions cannot be stated with confidence. What is clear is that the Russian approval is a domestic licensing step, and this brief could not verify whether it changes anything for Sberbank on the US sanctions side.

What is settled is where the crypto sits. Inside the same accounts clients already use, on a date the bank cannot set alone.