Russia Schedules its CBDC Pilot Testing Project Launch For April 1st

Russia has made headway with its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and has now announced plans to launch the Digital Ruble at the beginning of the second quarter of this year.

Per a published statement by the local news agency, TASS, the central bank of Russia widely known as the Bank of Russia will commence the pilot testing of the national digital currency with actual customers by 1st April 2023.

During the Cybersecurity in Finance forum, Olga Skorobogatova, First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank, mentioned that up to thirteen banks would be participating in this pilot testing phase.

Markedly, these thirteen banks have proved to be technically ready to participate in this pilot project owing to the fact that they cleared all necessary technical and operational tests conducted on them.

“We plan to launch the digital ruble project on April 1 with transactions between individuals and payments in trade and service enterprises at the beginning, at this stage. I will immediately draw your attention to the fact that the pilot will go on real transactions, real customers, but for a limited number of transactions and for a limited number of clients with 13 banks that have already technically confirmed their readiness.”

Ordinary people will not be allowed to participate in the peer-to-peer transactions of the Digital Ruble testing. After this scheduled pilot testing project, the central bank will then decide on whether and how to expand the experiment. 

Russia Broadens Horizon With CBDC 

Just like many other nations, Russia has been researching how to roll out a CBDC for easy and convenient transactions. The first proposal for the CBDC project came as far back as 2020.

However, the need for a national digital currency intensified when the war-torn country began to search for a means to circumvent sanctions levied against it by various global authorities including the United States.

At the time, a consultation paper considering the design of a potential Digital Ruble was published.

Next, the bank began to consider imposing fees on CBDC transactions, although it was planned to be lesser than that requested for sure transfers. Additionally, Russia considered engaging the national digital currency as a mutual settlement with regions like China with the ultimate goal of mitigating U.S. global financial hegemony with the dollar.