Alfa-Bank denies filing with the FAS over review of cryptocurrency-regulation concept
Alfa-Bank representatives, in a ForkLog statement, said they had not approached the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of the Russian Federation with a request to review the Finance Ministry’s letter on cryptocurrency regulation for possible violations of advertising and antitrust law.
“Alfa-Bank did not file such an appeal with the FAS,” the bank’s press service said.
The FAS, in a ForkLog comment, also said that no application from Alfa-Bank had been submitted to them.
On 2 February, the ForkLog editorial office obtained a copy of the appeal addressed to the FAS bearing Alfa-Bank’s logo. In the document, allegedly on behalf of the bank’s representatives, it stated that the Finance Ministry’s mention of the Swiss service Aximetria as an example of the full identification procedure violates the Advertising Law and the Law on Protection of Competition.
ForkLog sent inquiries to Aximetria, but as of publication had not received a reply.
In November 2021 was acquired by «Tinkoff» a stake in Aximetria. The press service of Tinkoff Bank, in a ForkLog comment, clarified that the owner of the stake in Aximetria is their parent company, TCS Group Holding PLC.
“Aximetria will develop within the framework of the international expansion of the Tinkoff Group, with compliance with all jurisdictional requirements of international presence,” the bank’s representatives added.
Earlier, after the Central Bank’s report proposing a complete ban on the circulation and mining of cryptocurrencies on Russian soil, the Finance Ministry developed and approved the concept for industry development. Among other things, the department proposed adopting the Swiss service Aximetria as the basis for identifying cryptocurrency owners.
Earlier ForkLog’s consulted experts suspected the Finance Ministry of preparing Bitcoin-market regulation tailored to a specific player, namely Tinkoff Bank. They noted that, according to several sources, Tinkoff already has developed functionality for working with digital currencies.
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