Blockchain Gets A Russian Payments Friend

Qiwi, a Russian payments provider, is showing some interest in blockchain technology.

Despite the harsh regulatory environment for bitcoin and the blockchain in Russia, that doesn’t appear to have halted the ambitions of the company. A new report indicates that Qiwi has plans to launch a blockchain consortium in Russia, similar to the R3CEV, a 44-member banking consortium.

“We see that the debate on the blockchain in Russia has become more substantive and constructive. By ​​creating a consortium similar to R3 … many companies will have the opportunity not only to investigate but also to test existing prototypes,” said Qiwi CTO Alexei Arkhipov.

He emphasized that his company wanted to develop prototypes for payments processing using blockchain’s technology. This project was originally titled “BitRuble” but was changed after it faced backlash from regulators. Russia has been working to create against basically anything related to digital currencies, bitcoin and the blockchain.

But, as technology adapts, Arkhipov said there is potential to create its own consortium of regional banks, financial institutions and enterprise businesses in order to determine how the technology could be developed. R3 is the largest of its type doing this type of initiative, which involves testing how blockchain’s tech can innovate financial institutions.