Alice Peacock – February 18, 2021
Discussions are underway about the launch of the digital ruble with local banks and the country’s financial watchdog has reportedly said it would present a more detailed concept by summer.
The head of the Central Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, said the regulator had received detailed feedback from the banking community about the prospect in a report back in October.
According to an RT report, most lenders expressed their support over a two-level model of the digital ruble.
The model would allow banks to open wallets for their clients on the central bank’s platform and conduct operations with the currency.
Nabiullina said: “We will develop a more detailed concept and start discussing it with the public, market participants, and banks at the beginning of summer.”
The next step would involve launching and testing a special platform.
The adoption of the new form of currency would also require amending legislation.
Russia’s central bank revealed its plan to assess the possibility of creating a digital form of the country’s national currency in its report published in October last year.
The digital ruble would exist along with cash and non-cash rubles, and would allow private and corporate users to freely transfer digital rubles to their electronic wallets.
The revelations come amid a boom in the price of the cryptocurrency bitcoin, which surged to record highs last week.