Ex-bank Boss Lebedev Says ‘Parasitic’ ‘Banks Pocket Clients Money,’ Touts DeFi

A Russian media mogul and former bank chief who is set to launch an ambitious new, DeFi-themed cryptobank project in Switzerland has taken a swipe at the conventional banking system and countries that allow themselves to become home to scores of shell companies – accusing them of churning out “dirty money.”

The claims were made by Alexander Lebedev in an opinion piece for The Independent, a British national newspaper that he co-owns – along with London’s Evening Standard. Lebedev said the cryptobank he is working on will become a “banking 2.0” solution and will be called the Independent Decentralized Financial Ecosystem.

In the piece, Lebedev, who recently sold his remaining interests in the Moscow-based National Reserve Bank, claimed,

“A huge parasitic class has been formed, made of bankers, fake investors, lawyers, auditors and service personnel, who rule entire states called ‘offshores’ and the countries that are [invested] in them. This class produces nothing but ‘dirty money.’”

He aimed more barbs at the finance industry, writing that “Modern bankers ruin their banks by pocketing clients’ money” and “The world banking community has turned into an ‘anti-bank,’ whose function is to misappropriate customers’ assets and launder ‘dirty money,’ the volume of which is increasing globally by USD 1 trillion every year.”

And the Russian claimed police and judiciary systems appear powerless to halt the rot, adding,

“Alas, national law enforcement structures and courts are not able to resist this evil on a systemic level – they only provide palliative care, by fighting against individual scams. My appeal for the creation of new international structures remains a lonely one.”

And Lebedev appears to be on hand with a DeFi-powered solution. After championing pro-crypto causes such as the Swiss canton of Zug’s move to allow tax payments in bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH), the media boss concluded,

“Perhaps we are on the verge of a real revolution in the international financial system. Yet one thing is indisputable: in the form in which this system exists now, it is leading the world economy to disaster.”

Lebedev has previously told Russian media outlets that he and a group of partners are looking to stump up USD 15 million to help his initiative rank among the “world’s top 10 DeFi projects.”
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