Russia's banks are actively recruiting for roles tied to crypto trading, cross-border payments, custody and compliance as the country's central bank works on a broader framework for crypto, according to hiring notices reviewed by The Coinformer.
Among them is Sberbank, also known as Sber, Russia's largest lender and a state-controlled banking giant. One vacancy says a prospective risk analyst should be familiar with protocols including Hyperliquid, Aave and Uniswap as it builds a business-to-business crypto platform.
Sber crypto risk analyst vacancy. Source: The Coinformer
- The notices offer a glimpse into the work happening behind banks' public crypto plans, though they don't show which products are already live or whether the institutions currently use any of the named protocols.
In a Sept. 29 posting shared with The Coinformer, Sber sought an analyst to assess blockchain and smart contract risks, monitor wallets and transactions as well as help manage risks tied to the bank's own crypto deals.
Experience analyzing or using Compound, Uniswap and Curve was also listed as an advantage.
- Other Sber vacancies point to a broader buildout.
- For instance, one seeks a developer to work on infrastructure connecting to public blockchains for storing and exchanging crypto and issuing tokenized securities.
- Another asks for knowledge of products such as liquid staking, yield farming and liquidity pools.
- A separate crypto brokerage vacancy said in September that a dedicated investment app was nearing production and would connect to an unnamed external crypto exchange.
Other banks are hiring, too
Russia's VTB, the second-largest bank in Russia by assets and capital, trailing only Sber, is seeking an operations specialist to check crypto wallet addresses, network fees, payments and crypto transaction records, The Coinformer found.
The role involves dealing with categories of partners that the bank lists as exchanges, over-the-counter counterparties, custodians and payment gateways, though it identifies none by name.
T-Bank, formerly Tinkoff, has advertised an international compliance role covering transaction monitoring and blockchain analysis for crypto products.
Alfa-Bank, one of Russia's largest privately owned banks, has also looked for an analyst to map back-office processes and regulatory requirements for a digital depository.
The payments pressure
Western sanctions have made it harder for Russian banks to move money through normal international channels.
One Sber trader vacancy spells out the workaround pretty clearly, saying its clients need instant crypto liquidity for cross-border payments and describes that as a "replacement for traditional SWIFT transfers," The Coinformer verified.
It also says a prospective risk analyst should be familiar with a broad range of crypto infrastructure, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, TRON and Avalanche, as well as Ethereum Layer-2 chains such as Arbitrum, Base and Optimism.
- It also names stablecoins including USDT, USDC, DAI and USDe, alongside DeFi tokens such as UNI, AAVE and CRV.
The role would also involve buying and selling crypto and tracking the portfolio's profit and loss.
Sber had already announced a crypto payment service for companies doing business abroad. It said transfers would cost 0.3% and take about two minutes, though the bank hasn't disclosed how much money has moved through the service.