Duma passes bill obligating banks and vendors to use digital ruble and universal QR payment code at first reading

MOSCOW. May 22 (Interfax) - The State Duma has passed at first reading a bill on the gradual inclusion of banks and merchants in the digital ruble platform and the introduction of a universal QR payment code.

A group of deputies submitted the document, No. 811008-8, to parliament in December 2024.

Lawmakers proposed the mandatory use of the universal payment code, operated by JSC National Payment Card System (NPCS), and a phased process ultimately requiring banks to facilitate transactions in digital rubles. It will also be possible to use the universal QR code for transfers in digital rubles.

During discussions, a series of concerns were raised over the draft regulation to centralize payment methods using a universal QR code through the NPCS.

The State Duma Financial Market Committee said that banks had already come up with various options for using payment codes and that imposing one exclusive solution could limit the development of private initiatives. In January, Sberbank , Alfa-Bank and T-Bank , which make up over 80% of the merchant acquiring market, spoke out against a monopolistic universal QR code system and suggested using mutual platform integration to regulate the market. They insisted that the technical features of the system be adjusted to allow clients to pay using QR codes through any operator. The State Duma Committee for the Protection of Competition said in a report in the same month that the current version of the law could lead to a monopoly and restrict bona fide participants from accessing the market.

Despite these objections, the draft law was recommended for adoption at the first reading.

The draft law also laid out a timeline for the gradual implementation of the digital ruble, from July 1, 2025 for systemically important banks, from 2026 for banks with a universal license and from 2027 for remaining banks. However, this did not coincide with the date scheduled by Federal Law No. 340 for the widespread use of the digital ruble, January 1, 2026. The Financial Market Committee wrote in its report on the draft law that Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina had said in February that the digital ruble platform would be made accessible to an unlimited range of users after the dates stipulated. The committee said that the proposed regulations therefore needed to be reviewed and adjusted to fit the actual timeline according to which infrastructure will be ready to use.

The State Duma committee said earlier that the regulations on QR payment codes and the digital ruble might potentially be separated into two different draft laws for the second reading.

During discussions in parliament on Thursday, deputy Valery Gartung asked a Central Bank representative and the authors of the draft law how the law was to be transformed for the second reading in recognition of the fact that introducing a unified QR payment code contradicts the national plan to develop competition by effectively eliminating it.

"The draft law is aimed at limiting the de facto monopoly that has formed on the market, and at providing a level playing field so that all market participants and all banks can offer their payment solutions to citizens. This in turn should make the payment services offered by banks cheaper, both for citizens and for merchants," CBR Deputy Governor Alexei Guznov said. He also said that it was already possible to create a QR code free of charge and that a regulation would be proposed for the second reading based on the results of discussions.