Sberbank of Russia, along with Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation (FAS Russia), launched a pilot project in order to exchange documents using blockchain technology.

According to the official release, the project titled Digital Ecosystem for exchanging documents using blockchain technology, will study the chances of distributed document storage that may eventually increase the speed, reliability, and quality of interaction during the document exchange.

“Digital Ecosystem is innovative because the document exchange process does not involve communications providers. The convenience of this solution and its cost-optimizing effect is achieved by using the networks of its participants,” Stepan Kuznetsov, Managing Director of Sberbank’s Shared Services Department said.

An electronic interaction model has been implemented by Sberbank and FAS Russia that allows transfer and storage of documents in encrypted format and also provides the signing of documents using electronic signatures. The pilot project involves Russian companies that are already actively deploying innovative solutions like Aeroflot, ForteInvest, Russian Coal, among others.

“This decentralizing approach cuts costs because data processing centers are not required and the requirements for equipment protection are lowered. It is noteworthy that Russia is one of the first countries in the world where the state and market participants are looking at these innovations as a way to simplify business operations,” Andrey Tsarikovsky, Deputy Head of the FAS Russia stated.

FAS Russia is the federal-level executive governmental organ that controls the execution of the antitrust law and related areas. The departments of the FAS Central authority includes Department for Control over Construction and Natural Resources, Department for Industry Control, Department for Regulation over Electric Power Industry, Department for Control over Financial Markets, among others.