Russian Raiffeisen Bank Announces Blockchain-based Digital Mortgage

The electronic mortgage system is designed to collect and store all required private and sensitive data from the parties involved in the transaction, information about the credit loan, and its term.

Furthermore, it holds more information about the acquired property which was issued on a decentralized depositary system.

The innovative system is running on the Masterchain network and creates a connection between the major banks in Russia, led by the Central Bank of Russia. The blockchain network was founded in 2016.

Andrey Popov – the IT department director of Raiffeisen, stated that the document system is verified with an electronic signature and then the information gets sent to the Rosreestr agency, which manages real estate data, to ensure the validation of the mortgage.

The bank is the pioneer with an e-mortgage system in the country. The data agency is not a part of the Masterchain platform for now, although currently there are ongoing negotiations.

According to local news outlets, the possible merger of the blockchain network and the state regulator could only be beneficial for all sides. It would speed up the process of receiving and checking data on mortgage repayments and would become decentralized without the need for any third-party mediators.

Raiffeisen agrees that the next important step will be to purchase and sell contracts and make real estate transactions within the blockchain.

Two other large banks in Russia joined the Masterchain network and by the end of 2018 will publish e-mortgages.

The blockchain property process has been running in the Netherlands, and in the next three years, the land registry of the country will be updated through blockchain technology.

Russia is steadily paving the way to crypto mass adoption, as more local banks are interested in the niche of cryptocurrency and blockchain. Recently, the Central Bank of Russia finished a successful Initial Coin Offering as a test.