Digital ruble will take 5-7 years to achieve mass adoption: Bank of Russia
Governor Elvira Nabiullina says that the digital ruble needs to be the most convenient payment method for individuals and businesses before it gains mass usage.
Governor Elvira Nabiullina says that the digital ruble needs to be the most convenient payment method for individuals and businesses before it gains mass usage.
Seven months after its introduction, Russia's digital ruble pilot has recorded 25,000 transactions, with the upcoming project with fellow BRICS member states projected to help increase the figure.
The State Duma Committee has issued a green light for the proposed digital assets bill to proceed for a second reading on the floor of the House after confirmation of several proposed amendments.
Since mid-2023, the Bank of Russia has been experimenting with its central bank digital currency, the digital ruble, and a tentative launch date is pegged for 2025.
Russia’s CBDC pilot is expected to will gather a larger pool of merchants and participants following the onboarding of over a dozen more banks in the initiative, including Russia's largest bank.
Alexander Razuvaev says that while it’s being framed as optional, the digital ruble will become mandatory for all pension payments, limiting economic freedom.
The Bank of Russia's digital ruble experiments will not launch before 2025 as the central bank continues to test a range of use cases for the CBDC with commercial banks.
For Russian financial institutions to circumvent Western-backed economic sanctions since its invasion of Ukraine, Russian deputies are pushing for wholesale CBDC while the retail pilot gets underway.
As Russia prepares its digital ruble pilot, concerns arise over privacy and the CBDC's potential implications to the financial landscape, which may likely push back the project's full rollout.
Starting in 2025, business-to-business transactions involving the digital ruble will have a 15 rubles ($0.16) charge, while individuals will only have a 0.3% charge of the total value of the transaction.
Although Russia has said the digital ruble will be optional, banks want that embedded in legislation as they say their customers are wary of the upcoming state-backed digital currency.
Even though the use of the digital ruble remains voluntary, the Bank of Russia’s law on the CBDC is being criticized over its alleged lack of privacy rights.