Belarus’s High-Tech Park registered the country’s first two crypto banks after a Supervisory Board meeting chaired by Prime Minister Aleksandr Turchin. The firms still need National Bank of Belarus accreditation and a place on the central bank’s crypto bank register before they can operate.
The names have not been released. Dmitry Kalechits, first deputy head of the HTP Supervisory Board Secretariat, said the applicants are known players on the crypto market with operating experience inside the park.
Anna Ryabova, head of the Secretariat, said National Bank accreditation follows HTP residency. “Two crypto banks in the country begin their movement,” she told BelTA.
What a Belarus crypto bank is allowed to do
President Aleksandr Lukashenko signed Decree No. 19 on January 16, 2026. Most provisions took effect on July 18, 2026. A crypto bank is a joint-stock company that is an HTP resident and is listed in the National Bank register. That status lets one legal entity combine digital-token activity with selected banking, payment, and related financial operations.
Crypto banks are not full commercial banks. They operate as non-bank credit and financial organizations under dual oversight: the National Bank for prudential, capital, and AML rules, and the HTP Supervisory Board for token activity, technology, and park residency.
National Bank First Deputy Chairman Aleksandr Yegorov said in April 2026 that crypto banks may work with about 26 approved tokens, including Bitcoin, Ether, Toncoin, Solana, and stablecoins, and may conduct 11 categories of operations. Those include crypto deposits, loans against token collateral, staking, transfers, custody, exchange, and issuance of the bank’s own tokens. Yegorov said the lists can be updated.
A later HTP regulation published on the national legal portal listed the same 26 tokens, among them BTC, ETH, SOL, TON, USDT, USDC, XRP, and BNB.
Capital, form, and the two-step license
Decree No. 19 and its implementing acts set a high entry bar.
- Legal form: open or closed joint-stock company (OAO or ZAO). An LLC does not qualify.
- HTP residency with a crypto-bank activity profile.
- Minimum charter capital of 20 million Belarusian rubles before an application to the National Bank register.
- An irrevocable conditional deposit of 10 million rubles at the National Bank within 10 working days after inclusion in the register.
The National Bank’s official rate on September 28, 2026, was 3.0276 rubles per U.S. dollar. At that rate, 20 million rubles is about $6.6 million and the 10 million ruble deposit is about $3.3 million.
Board Resolution No. 167 of July 10, 2026, adds prudential rules after register entry. Minimum regulatory capital is 30 million rubles, or 60 million rubles if the firm may place attracted funds on repayment, interest, and maturity terms. Leverage ratios and daily liquidity controls also apply. Permitted banking operations are limited to accounts for non-residents, legal entities, and correspondent banks; foreign-exchange and settlement work; cash settlement services; and any extra operations named in the register decision.
Resolutions No. 157 and No. 158, adopted June 30, 2026, and in force July 18, 2026, set the procedures for adding, changing, or removing National Bank register entries.
Kalechits said applicants had built teams and IT systems and completed technical and legal audits before the September 28 HTP vote.
Who applied, and what remains unpublished
Officials have not named the two residents. Belarusian exchange WhiteBird said earlier in 2026 that it wanted to launch the first crypto bank and registered LLC White Finance (UNP 193998072) for that purpose. Co-founder Sergei Cherchen said in mid-September that the project was about 90 percent ready and that at least seven other teams also planned applications. Whether WhiteBird or White Finance is one of the two HTP residents registered on September 28 is unverified. The National Bank crypto bank register had no operating entries as of late September.
HTP officials said in July that investors from Belarus, Eurasian Economic Union states, and outside the region had expressed interest. The park then counted 26 crypto residents, including 10 exchanges and 13 brokers. Independent confirmation of the HTP vote also appeared in Onliner, Reform.news, and Odaily, citing TASS.
Sanctions and the reach of the new banks
The European Union has restricted dealings with Belarusian crypto-asset service providers. April 2026 measures prohibited transactions with CASPs and exchange platforms established in Belarus. July 2026 measures, in force from August 25, 2026, also bar Belarusian nationals and residents from owning, controlling, or sitting on the boards of EU firms that provide crypto-asset services under MiCA. WhiteBird was among platforms later named in related EU transaction-ban lists.
Those rules limit EU-facing business. They do not, by themselves, block a Belarus-licensed crypto bank from serving clients outside the EU under Belarusian law. Correspondent banking with EU institutions is a separate compliance question for the National Bank register process.
What happens after HTP registration
HTP residency is only the first key. Kalechits said the National Bank will take a second decision on inclusion in the crypto bank register. Until that listing, the firms are not crypto banks under Decree No. 19 and may not lawfully combine token activity with the listed banking operations.
No public deadline for the National Bank decisions was given on September 28. Officials have said the first institutions could appear before the end of 2026.
This article is for information only. It is not investment, legal, or banking advice. Licensing terms, permitted tokens, and capital rules are set by Belarusian authorities and can change. Confirm status on the National Bank register and with the provider before relying on any service.
