Business news

MINSK, 25 April (BelTA) – The National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB) and banks may get the right to sign smart contracts. There are plans to introduce relevant amendments to Decree No. 478 on digital banking technology development, Olga Sachkovskaya, deputy head of the Digital Technologies Department of the NBRB Payment System and Digital Technologies Directorate, noted at the Digital Banking conference on 25 April, BelTA informs.

“The central bank and banks will get the right to sign smart contracts. Today only the Belarus’ Hi-Tech Park resident companies have this right, according to Ordinance No.8,” Oksana Sachkovskaya said.

A smart contract is a computer code running on blockchain, which is used for automating contractual obligations or other legally valid actions.

The proposed amendments to Decree No. 478 are meant to extend the list of participants of the interbank client identification system, who have the right to use data from this system. The list of organizations is under discussion for the time being.

The decree will be amended in accordance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation which comes into force on 25 May 2018. Those provisions of the document will be changed that apply to non-Belarus residents whose data is collected.

Some of the amendments will allow several organizations to carry out certain operations without digital signatures by analogy with banks.