Qiwi, the Russian e-payment provider is launching a cryptocurrency investment bank. The name of the bank will be HASH, as reported by Kommersant on June 29th. The bank will be founded by Qiwi Blockchain Technologies, which is a subsidiary of Qiwi.
Qiwi is the leading provider of payment services in Russia and the CIS. The company has deployed over 17 million virtual wallets and its services are used by over 70 million consumers.
HASH will be built on the model of the traditional investment banking, with the difference coming from the offered products. HASH will provide an ICO platform. While regular investment banks help companies raise capital and prepare initial public offerings (IPOs), HASH will provide its clients with full services for initial coin offerings (ICO) procedures. The crypto investment bank will help firms with their fundraising activities.
Kommersant also reported that the crypto bank will partner with different international funds that focus primarily on cryptocurrencies. Shortly after that, HASH is also going to add cryptocurrency trading to its portfolio as soon as all licensing work is completed. Russia is becoming very pro-crypto, as it also classified cryptocurrencies as “digital rights”, a special type of property digital rights.