Russia's digital ruble could be common method for payment within five to seven years - Central Bank
MOSCOW. June 30 (Interfax) - The Bank Central of Russia expects the digital ruble to become a common method of payment within five to seven years, as stated in the Central Bank's "Digital Ruble: Current Status of the Project" report.
The digital ruble is the third form of the Russian national currency that the Central Bank plans to issue in addition to existing forms of cash and non-cash funds. The Central Bank has been conducting a pilot with digital rubles since August 15, 2023. As expected, the digital ruble should begin mass introduction on September 1, 2026.
The CBR has said that around 2,500 wallets of individuals and legal entities have been opened on the digital ruble platform, and that transactions with the digital national currency have been available to the clients of 15 banks from over 150 localities since the end of May 2025. Over 63,000 transfers were rendered overall, with around 13,000 payments for goods and services rendered, and over 17,000 smart contracts have been executed.
The CBR is currently conducting additional discussions on the economic model of the digital ruble with banks participating in the project, as well as with government agencies. Specifically, the most popular scenarios to implement smart contracts are under discussion, which should allow the new ruble to improve the economic efficiency of processes potentially, including budgetary, the CBR said.
The platform plans to launch payments in e-commerce, connect individual entrepreneurs to the platform, and render payments according to registers for mass and regular transactions going forward.
On June 25, the CBR proposed new deadlines for the mandatory operations of banks and retail outlets with the digital ruble. There are plans that the largest banks would need to provide their clients with the opportunity to render transactions with the digital national currency beginning on September 1, 2026, with the same deadline proposed for the respective clients and retail outlets with revenue for the past year of over 120 million rubles.
Other banks with a universal license, as well as trading companies, and their clients with annual revenue over 30 million rubles, will be able to configure their systems until September 1, 2027. The remaining banks and sellers with revenue of less than 30 million rubles per year will have to operate with digital rubles starting from September 1, 2028. The requirement would not be applicable to retail outlets with revenue under 5 million rubles for the year.
As assumed, large banks would be required to provide customers with the opportunity to conduct transactions with digital rubles from July 1, 2025; banks with a universal license as from July 1, 2026; and other credit institutions on July 1, 2027. These requirements are contained within draft N0. 811008-8 hat, which also introduces a single payment QR code on the market, the sole operator of which will be NSPK. The document was submitted to parliament at the end of last year and adopted in the first reading on May 22.
