Blockchain technology can rewrite the mortgage process in Russia

The Russian economy is moving into a new period of low interest rates, with mortgage rates dropping below 10% and expected to reach below 8% by 2024. Such low interest rates coupled with increasing customer expectations from financial service providers have meant that financial institutions need to increase the ease and efficiency of the mortgage process. Although modern technologies have greatly facilitated much of the mortgage process, customers still need to spend considerable time and effort collecting all necessary documents and references as well as making repeat visits to a financial institution location.

Blockchain technology, however, offers the promise of significantly simplifying the mortgage process. And in May 2018, DOM.RF and Vostok’s blockchain platform launched a project to develop a platform introducing blockchain technology for just this purpose. In the end, it is hoped that all business processes related to a mortgage (from application to the registration of acquired real estate) can be moved to an electronic format, meaning that a customer can complete all actions remotely. This not only adds much convenience to customers’ lives, it also reduces costs to financial institutions – a true win-win situation.