Ivan Zimin, Director of the Financial Technologies Department of the Bank of Russia, believes that it is necessary to prohibit settlements in stablecoins, including Sbercoin’s stablecoin – Sbercoin.
In his speech at a meeting of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) on banks and banking, Zimin said that private cryptocurrencies and stablecoins should not be used for settlements and payments in Russia. For this purpose, only the state currency and the digital ruble are suitable. Zimin said the government has already taken an important step by banning payments with private, unsecured cryptocurrencies and other “monetary surrogates.” According to Zimin, it is now necessary to limit the use of stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies.
However, Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, does not agree with this proposal. On the contrary, he believes that digital assets issued by Russian banks have prospects for development. For example, Sberbank is preparing to launch its own stablecoin Sbercoin, backed by the Russian ruble. Sbercoin is designed for faster payments and interbank settlements with low fees. At the beginning of the year, Sberbank already filed an application with the Bank of Russia to register a platform for issuing Sbercoin, since according to the law “On digital financial assets (DFA) and digital currency”, such assets can only be launched on registered platforms. Therefore, Aksakov called for a more detailed discussion of the use of stablecoins in the field of payments.
“It is interesting to see how the Sberbank stablecoin will work. I was puzzled by Ivan Zimin’s statement about the ban on the use of such assets as a means of payment. This issue should be discussed by technical specialists, economists and bankers, ”Aksakov said.
He announced the need to use the digital ruble along with stablecoins issued by commercial banks. Such CFA could have special codes that would be registered with the central bank, Aksakov suggested. However, this requires finding a suitable technological solution. Aksakov explained that according to the current Russian legislation, stablecoins, being pegged to fiat currency, are considered digital financial assets rather than digital currencies. Therefore, stablecoins are not prohibited from being used for settlements.
The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation supported Zimin’s position, stating that the state currency could be the only legal tender in Russia. The Ministry of Finance explained that the issue and circulation of digital currency has not yet been specified in the legislation of the Russian Federation, but work is already underway on this.
Recall that last week Aksakov proposed to amend the law “On digital currency and digital currencies” to distinguish between the concepts of cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and the digital ruble.
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