Sberbank, one of the largest banks in Russia, has announced the launch of a blockchain laboratory to explore the technology and develop blockchain solutions.

According to the official release, the lab will focus on testing blockchain technologies, generating ideas to develop blockchain-based solutions, creating product prototypes, carrying out pilot projects, and implementing applied business solutions for Sberbank Group. It also aims to popularise blockchain and provide assistance in the preparation of educational programmes in this area.

“Mastering, developing, and implementing the most promising technologies is an important element of our competitiveness as a bank and an indispensable part of our future as a tech company. It is important to note that blockchain helps market participants cooperate more efficiently. Hence, Sberbank is making a contribution to the future of the banking industry and our country by launching the blockchain laboratory, said Igor Bulantsev, Sberbank’s Senior Vice President, Head of Sberbank CIB.

The blockchain lab will cooperate with startups, associations, communities, and alliances to offer its competencies to other market participants. It will also interact with Sberbank’s other laboratories to create synergies of the most advanced technologies.

Sberbank said it will hire specialists for the lab who have experience in working with blockchain and cooperating with business for the purpose of creating and implementing ideas related to existing products and generating new approaches to business tasks.

Sberbank has created more than 20 blockchain-based pilot projects, including joint solutions with Severstal, M.video, and the Federal Antimonopoly Services, which have already been put into practice. In December 2017, the bank announced that it has conducted the country’s banking industry’s first-ever pilot blockchain payment transaction.