VTB to finish technical preparations for using digital ruble in Q1 2025

SOCHI. Oct 16 (Interfax) - VTB will be technically ready to use the digital ruble in the first quarter of 2025 and is waiting for the Central Bank to launch the technology, the Russian state bank said in a press release.

Receiving or making payments in digital rubles looks very familiar, the bank said. For example, when a stipend is deposited the user receives a push notification that the funds have been received. In addition to the sum and current balance, the notification states that the payment was made in digital rubles.

In the VTB Online system, the digital ruble balance is shown in a separate account, an electronic wallet, from which users will be able to make payments and transfers, both to their own and other people's accounts.

In the case of paying a fine, for example, the user makes the payment from the wallet in digital rubles. Otherwise, the user scenario is no different from the usual noncash transaction.

VTB is now doing what needs to be done to configure its technological infrastructure to introduce payments in digital rubles.

"In the first quarter of 2025 VTB will be ready for the start of transactions with the digital ruble: open and top up accounts, make transfers, receive digital rubles in its infrastructure. We believe that recipients of government payments and benefits will be the first to most actively use the new form of the national currency and our job is to make this process seamless and indistinguishable from other noncash transactions," VTB vice president Georgy Gorshkov said in the press release.