A report from the state-run news service TASS says that Russia’s central bank, the Bank of Russia, wants the digital ruble, its central bank digital currency (CBDC), to be widely used by July 2025.
Elvira Nabiullina, Governor of the Bank of Russia, recently shared the news at a meeting of the Federation Council. She said that the country will use the digital ruble on a large scale within a year if the test programs go as planned. Nabiullina made it clear that this change would happen slowly.
Digital Ruble Adoption Timeline
Nabiullina predicted earlier this year that the digital ruble would become widely used in five to seven years. She said this was because it would need to fit the needs and preferences of both people and businesses.
Since August 2023, the Bank of Russia has been testing its CBDC program with about 600 workers from 12 local banks. During this first part of testing, digital wallet features like opening and closing accounts, adding money to wallets, and sending money to other people or to an automated system are all tried out.
The digital ruble is a version of the Russian ruble that is built on blockchain technology. It stands in for a centralized currency that the central bank controls. The creation of this digital currency, which was first called the “crypto ruble,” has been talked about since 2017.
People were reassured in an October 2020 consultation paper that the digital ruble would work with current cash and non-cash rubles, not replace them. China’s plan is different from this one. In Changshu, the digital yuan is already being used to pay state salaries to encourage more people to use CBDC.
