The Bank of Russia appointed testing of the digital ruble on banking clients

First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Olga Skorobogatova said that in April 2023 the regulator plans to test the state digital ruble on real transactions.

Olga Skorobogatova told about the CBDC beta test with bank clients at the meeting of the Bank of Russia with credit institutions. She did not specify whether individual users will be able to take part in experiments with the digital ruble, or whether the opportunity will be available only to legal entities.

The Bank of Russia plans to use smart contracts in testing the digital ruble. The use of digital currency will reduce transaction costs when making payments and settlements, as well as speed up banking operations, Skorobogatova assured.

Initially, the regulator planned to involve real customers in a pilot project from 2024. However, the Bank of Russia believes that it has achieved good results, so I am sure that bank clients can be involved in testing the digital ruble about a year earlier.

A few months ago, Skorobogatova already talked about the successful transfer of digital rubles between clients through banking mobile applications. Depending on the test results, the Bank of Russia intends to finalize the platform for the digital ruble and make the necessary improvements to it. In April, the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, announced that several more banks would join the testing of the digital ruble, as their own digital systems were finalized.

The government expects the first digital financial assets (DFAs) to be issued in Russia by the end of 2022, but for this, Russian agencies must agree on the regulation of cryptocurrencies.