Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabulina has confirmed that its central bank digital currency (CBDC) is on track for a mass rollout in July 2025. In January 2024, but it turns out that it hasn’t happened yet. Russia’s largest bank Sber was among the second group, so it is likely not yet part of the pilot.

In September, the central bank relaxed some restrictions for the pilot. The number of participants has increased from 600 to 9,000 and the number of traders has increased from 22 to 1,200. The second wave of 20 banks is still in the onboarding process.

Legal requirements for digital ruble

By July 2025, major banks will be obliged to support the digital ruble. Therefore, they have to open digital ruble accounts and top up, transfer and accept digital rubles.

Other banks will have to comply a year later, and non-bank credit institutions have two more years until July 2027. It is providing code for a digital wallet that banks can add to their mobile apps.

There will also be mandatory acceptance of the digital ruble by merchants. Organizations with a turnover of 30 million rubles ($320,000) or more must comply at launch. Those with revenues above 20 million rubles have an additional year, and other businesses have two years.

The central bank does not believe it will be too difficult for merchants to adopt CBDC, as it plans to mandate universal QR codes with a draft law in preparation. It will be based on the QR codes currently used by SBP, Russia’s faster payment system. Universal QR code is already used by 22 banks.

No impact on monetary policy.

Meanwhile, last week the central bank sent an update of its monetary policy proposals for 2025-2027 to the Duma.

“The digital ruble will not have a significant impact on the Monetary Policy Transmission Mechanism (MPTM). At the same time, the Bank of Russia has all the tools to compensate for the secondary effects of the introduction of the digital ruble on the MPTM, if they are born,” the central bank said.

We believe that there will be no limit to the conduct of CBDC. Potential secondary effects would include large-scale transfers of funds from banks to CBDCs.

However, a recent survey by alternative lending service Moneyman highlighted the need to educate the public about the digital ruble. TASS reported that a third of the respondents believed that the digital ruble is a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin.

63 percent of respondents either had no idea about the digital ruble (39.7%) or found it difficult to describe (23.1%). One in five had some idea of ​​what CBDC involves, with 16.4 percent having a more detailed understanding.