Russia's largest credit institutions have fully completed the preparation of their technical infrastructure for conducting cross-border settlements in cryptocurrency. The market, which is just beginning to take shape, promises to become an arena of extremely fierce competition, where the stakes will be at their highest.
Dmitry Vitman, Chief Operating Officer of the Corporate and Investment Banking division at Alfa-Bank, confirmed during a recent professional discussion that the infrastructure stage is behind them. According to him, technically, all leading players are 100% ready. However, having a ready-made platform is only half the battle. The main struggle will unfold over the client base, and here the advantage will go to whoever gets to the starting line first.
Vitman characterized the upcoming period as a "red ocean" — a classic market model where all competitors are already armed and fighting for the same audience. At Alfa-Bank, however, this prospect is viewed as an opportunity rather than a threat. Competition is seen as the main driver of change and a chance to capture a share of the transforming market.
Shaping Demand: From Miners to Corporations
Despite technological readiness, the key challenge now lies not in the IT sphere, but in the area of market education. Essentially, it will have to be built from scratch, similar to how it happened with the launch of digital financial assets (DFAs). The first clients will naturally be companies already familiar with cryptocurrency: miners and importers working with jurisdictions where digital currencies are legally accepted.
However, attracting "traditional" corporate clients will require deep educational efforts. Banks will have to explain pricing principles, compare new instruments with familiar ones, and overcome ingrained thinking. As the Alfa-Bank representative noted, the return on such efforts will be extremely low in the initial stages, but without this phase, mass adoption cannot be achieved.
My view: The Russian banking sector is taking a pragmatic and timely step. Cross-border settlements are a "bottleneck" for international business, and cryptocurrency here becomes not a speculative asset, but a tool for solving real operational problems. The market will indeed be tough, but its emergence is a clear signal that crypto assets are transitioning from the category of "exotics" to the category of standard banking services for corporations.