Perm Winter School, a 3-day long international economic conference, begins its work today. Financial markets are the central theme of this year’s discussions with new blockchain protocols on the agenda. 

According to its official site, Perm Winter School (PWS) aims at creating a community of talented students, progress-minded academicians and innovative industry practitioners in the area of quantitative finance and risk management. PWS claims to cover the most recent empirical research, theoretical models and the industry’s best practices. The School is a yearly event taking place in the Russian city of Perm for the sixth time.

This year’s PWS programme includes 10 discussion sessions, a trading & risk lab and one research session. Among the topics for discussion are listed: financial and economic networks, core-periphery structures in networks, global marketplace design, risk management and blockchain settlement’s protocols and scalability issues.

The declared list of speakers includes Professor Rosario Mantegna (Central European University), Alexey Lobanov (Bank of Russia), Richard Olsen and Mikhail Nikulin (Lykke), Ann-Christina Lange (Copenhagen Business School), Victor Lapshin (FERM Lab HSE), Vyacheslav Arbuzov (Prognoz Risk Lab).

Despite the contradictory attitude of Russian authorities towards bitcoin, blockchain is regarded more favourably. Last December the country’s largest bank Sberbank declared it would probably join R3 blockchain consortium. Besides, some Russian financial authorities, like the former Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin and the head of Sberbank Herman Gref, said the blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionise governance system. On 20 January Russian media reported that Kazan-based Tatfondbank and Moscow-based Life.SREDA venture fund created a new lab to study blockchain and Islamic banking in Tatarstan, Russia.

Anna Lavinskaya