Calay News
The Central Bank of Russia plans to launch a pilot project for the digital ruble on April 1, 2023. According to the Bank’s first deputy governor, Olga Skorobogatova, the pilot project will involve 13 local banks and several retailers and will be the first consumer pilot of the nation’s central bank’s digital currency. The pilot project will include real transactions and consumers in Russia, such as transfers between natural persons and payments at commercial and service companies. However, the number of transactions and customers will be limited in this first phase of the trial period.
Skorobogatova clarified that general customers will not be able to participate in the first phase of the pilot project, as banks will enter the pilot with selected customers. After the first phase, the Bank of Russia plans to determine how to scale up the digital ruble. The implementation of the digital ruble follows the roadmap officially presented by the central bank in June 2022, which was initially planned for 2024. The consumer CBDC pilot project was brought forward to an earlier date as the Bank of Russia sought an alternative to the SWIFT payment system amid Western economic sanctions against Russia.
Amid these plans, some Russian officials are considering a gold-backed token intended for cross-border transactions. The first deputy governor of the Bank of Russia, Vladimir Chistyukhin, believes that such a “gold token” will help Russia create an attractive new investment product and build a payment method in demand for international payments.
