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Bank of Russia selected 12 banks for digital ruble pilot
The Bank of Russia has formed the first pilot group to test the digital ruble. The group included 12 banks, which expressed their desire to participate in the pilot project and sent corresponding letters to the Central Bank.
The pilot group includes Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank, Alfa-Bank, Dom.RF Bank, Rosbank, Promsvyazbank, Tinkoff Bank, SKB-Bank, Ak Bars Bank, Transcapitalbank and Soyuz Bank.
The development of a prototype platform for the digital ruble is to be completed in December, with testing to begin in January 2022 and continue in several stages throughout the year. Based on the results of this work, a roadmap for the introduction of the digital ruble will be elaborated.
“The digital ruble is a project aimed at creation of a new payment infrastructure to increase the availability and reduce the cost of payments and money transfers for citizens and businesses. For ease of use, it is necessary to ensure a seamless transition from one form of the ruble to another. That is why it is extremely important for us to interact with market participants at all stages of piloting. To organize such interaction, we promptly formed the first pilot group of banks so that they could have time to set up their systems and processes for piloting both technically and technologically,” said Olga Skorobogatova, First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Russia.
At the first stage, the issue of the digital ruble and a number of other operations are planned for testing. In the future, it is planned to expand the list of tested operations and also increase the number of pilot participants. Just as a reminder, the central bank presented the concept of introducing the digital ruble in April 2021. In June, the Bank of Russia Governor E. Nabiullina said that the digital ruble would become the future of the Russian financial system.