Russian Regions Welcome Digital Ruble Developments – But When Will CBDC Debut?
Russian regions are welcoming news that the nation’s digital ruble pilot is set to officially launch on August 1, but banks and officials claim that a full CBDC rollout may not come until 2027.
Ludmila Panina, the head of the payment systems and settlements department at the Chelyabinsk Branch of the Central Bank told Polit74,
“The digital ruble may [roll out to] citizens on a wide scale from around 2025 to 2027.”
Experts have previously suggested that a full rollout may take place in 2025.
Panina added that a “first-stage pilot group” of 13 banks would work with selected “retail outlets” on the digital ruble, alongside the Central Bank.
She did not elaborate on where in the country these outlets would be located, but said they would “mostly be small retailers, for example, gas stations, grocery stores, and clothing stores.”
The department chief said the coin would be used for “paying for purchases and services using a QR code,” much like the Chinese digital yuan.
Panina concluded:
“In the future, the range of operations will be expanded.”
Chelyabinsk is located in Russia’s West-Central region, just east of the Ural Mountains.
This could suggest that Moscow is looking to follow China’s CBDC rollout lead.
Beijing has sought to create an ever-expanding CBDC pilot zone, rather than impose a hard rollout date.
Similar comments were made by Larisa Zelenova, the Business Development Director of Rosbank’s Omsk operations, in an interview with Om1.
When asked when Omsk residents would be able to “actively use” the digital ruble, Zelenova replied that there were still “no plans” to “rush to implement a large-scale project.”
In a statement similarly worded to Panina’s, Zelenova explained that “in the future,” the digital ruble’s “range of
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