Digital assets stuck at a low start

Alfa-Bank made a test placement of digital financial assets (DFA), which was the first issue for credit institutions secured only by monetary rights. Other market participants are also planning new issues. But experts remain skeptical about the segment, calling the CFA an unsuccessful experiment that will never attract enough players.

Alfa-Bank conducted a trial issue of digital financial assets worth RUB 10 million for a pilot group of private investors. at 10% per annum for 30 days. The bank itself acted as the issuer. You can work with the platform and conduct transactions through the A-Token mobile application. It is planned to open access to the platform to a wide range of investors in the second quarter. Alfa-Bank itself entered the register of information systems (IS) operators only two weeks ago.

The CFA Law came into force in January 2021. The Bank of Russia maintains a register of information system operators that issue DFAs, as well as a register of their exchange operators. The first list includes the Atomyze platform (Interros holding is one of the investors), Sberbank, Lighthouse (a partner of Transmashholding) and Alfa-Bank. Six more applications for inclusion in the register of operators are under consideration by the Central Bank.

To date, Atomyze has made eleven issues of CFA, Sberbank – nine, Lighthouse – four, for Alfa-Bank the current issue will be the first. The only issue of Sberbank, where it acts as an issuer, is backed by gold. Thus, the issue of Alfa-Bank became the first banking DFA secured by purely monetary rights, without the participation of any assets. In fact, we are talking about a form of unsecured fundraising.

Secondary circulation of this issue is possible from February 22 within the IP operator between users in accordance with the rules of Alfa-Bank. “This transaction is not of a market nature in terms of volumes, rates and terms, we are checking the client experience,” Alfa Bank explained. Therefore, they specified there, for example, there is no connection between the rate and that on bonds (the rate on the CFA is higher than on bonds of Alfa-Bank). “The response of clients to new investment opportunities through the CFA greatly exceeds expectations, so we will continue to work on new products and conduct a dialogue with the regulator and market participants to improve the legislative framework,” said Vladimir Voeikov, director of large and medium-sized businesses at Alfa-Bank.

Atomize CEO Ekaterina Frolovicheva said that the company is planning issues in the form of a cash demand, but tied to a variety of assets, from precious stones to loan portfolios. Denis Iordanidi, General Director of Lighthouse, emphasized that the specifics of the platform’s products are focused on working with large businesses: “Draft decisions on the issuance of CFAs are currently being discussed, which will allow businesses to place free ruble liquidity with a yield higher than current offers on the bank deposits market.” In Sberbank, “Kommersant” did not answer.

The current placement of Alfa-Bank, like the entire segment as a whole, should be viewed as a tool for a very closed circle of people, says Andrey Tugarin, managing partner at GMT Legal. “Until now, the entire DFA industry is at the stage of testing and testing, despite the fact that the relevant law has been in force in the country for more than three years,” the expert emphasizes. As such, the DFA market still does not exist: issues related to taxation have not been settled, there is no necessary liquidity and infrastructure for access to DFA for a wide range of people, foreign investors and the way to the market is completely closed, added ENCRY Foundation co-founder Roman Nekrasov.

Trading volumes are “ridiculous, they are test runs to check technical readiness,” agrees 0Xprocessing co-founder Nikita Vassev. Test transactions, in his opinion, will be replaced by real market trading only when sufficient liquidity appears. And this, in turn, will happen if money “flows” into the CFA and there will be more participants, the expert believes. But a number of experts consider this too big an assumption. “Real demand for tokenized securities is not expected due to both their uselessness and the lack of significant benefits or convenience in relation to existing instruments,” Dmitry Machikhin, CEO and founder of BitOK, is sure. “This is an unsuccessful experiment and an attempt to create an alternative to digital currencies, which simply close.”

Ksenia Kulikova