Russian Federation CBDC Tracker

Russia is in the launched phase. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the introduction of the CBDC (referred to as the digital ruble) into law on July 24, 2023, according to reporting by Russian News Agency TASS. Bank of Russia governor Elvira Nabiullina announced both banks and other businesses will be forced to use and process the CBDC starting in July 2025.

However, the CBDC had already been available for over a year. The Bank of Russia announced that it would begin piloting a CBDC on August 15, 2023. At the start, the pilot involved 13 banks and an estimated 600 of their clients. At the end of August 2024, the Bank of Russia announced it was expanding the number of people able to access its CBDC. The central bank wrote, the expansion “will make it possible to engage up to 9,000 people and 1,200 companies, whereas only 600 people and 22 companies took part in it during the previous stage.”

CBDC History and Development

In 2021, the Bank of Russia announced a pilot group featuring 12 banks that would test the CBDC in stages intended to start in January 2022. Bank of Russia first deputy chair Olga Skorobogatova said, “The digital ruble is a project to create a new payment infrastructure to increase accessibility and reduce the cost of payments and transfers for citizens and businesses. To make it convenient to use, it is necessary to ensure a seamless transition from one form of the ruble to another. That is why interaction with market participants at all stages of piloting is extremely important for us. To organize such interaction, we quickly formed the first pilot group of banks so that they had time to set up their systems and processes for piloting from a technical and technological point of view.”

The Bank of Russia claims that a CBDC will benefit citizens by providing access through existing banks, uniform rates, offline use, security, and improved customer service. However, the chair of the Duna Committee of the Financial Market Anatoly Aksakov said, “No matter how great the student’s desire to use his mother’s digital ruble for unhealthy sweets, it will not be possible to use the money for other purposes. The intended purpose of the money allocated by the parents to the child will be specified in a special smart contract. A similar approach is applicable when directing government funds to implement various programs by contractors or individuals. This budget money will be used in a targeted manner for the implementation of exactly those projects for which they were intended, which will lead to an increase in the efficiency of circulation of public funds.” Aksakov further said that amendments were written specifically to ensure that the CBDC is “not used for unseemly purposes.”

In August 2023, the Bank of Russia expects to issue a CBDC (referred to as the digital ruble) to the entire public in early 2025. Bank of Russia first deputy governor Olga Skorobogatova said, “[B]oth individuals and businesses will be able to actively use the national digital currency, of course if they wish to.”

In January 2024, Kommersant reported that the Bank of Russia was organizing resources to launch telephone support lines for customer service. It was later reported in March 2024 that there had been 25,000 transactions since the CBDC was kicked off. Bank of Russia governor Elvira Nabiullina said that the testing is going according to plan and that there were plans to add another 19 banks to the project.

In July 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for restrictions on cryptocurrency mining—citing concerns regarding energy use. At the same time, he called for the central bank to “move to a broader, full-scale implementation of the digital ruble in the economy, in business activities and in the financial sector.” President Putin noted that over 27,000 transfers and over 7,000 payments had been made with the CBDC by “12 banks, 600 individuals, and 22 trade and service enterprises from 11 cities.” A few days later, President Putin signed the CBDC into law alongside the creation of a corresponding electronic platform, according to reporting from Russian News Agency TASS. Later in July, Bank of Russia governor Elvira Nabiullina said there would be a “mass-scale rollout of a digital ruble from July 2025,” but that “the use of a digital ruble by individuals will be absolutely voluntary.” Governor Nabiullina further said the Russian CBDC would offer free transfers for consumers and low fees for businesses that the central bank believes will “gradually make a digital ruble part of our life over the course of five to seven years.”

At the end of August 2024, the Bank of Russia announced it was expanding the number of people able to access its CBDC. The central bank wrote, the expansion “will make it possible to engage up to 9,000 people and 1,200 companies, whereas only 600 people and 22 companies took part in it during the previous stage.”

In September 2024, the Bank of Russia shared two updates. First, the Bank of Russia announced banks would be forced to use the CBDC and provide services to customers wanting to use the CBDC. Specifically, the central bank said, “By 1 July 2025, major banks will have to give their clients an opportunity to conduct transactions with digital rubles, namely to open digital ruble accounts and deposit cash thereto, make funds transfers, as well as receive digital rubles via the relevant infrastructure.” It will also be at this time (July 2025) that the central bank plans to move the CBDC to large-scale use. The second update came from Bank of Russia governor Elvira Nabiullina when she said, “[W]e would like to oblige banks to process digital ruble transactions stage by stage: at first, these should be systemically important banks who are more prepared, then banks with a universal license, followed by banks with a basic license. The same should be done in relation to trade and service companies: they should start accepting digital ruble payments gradually, similarly to how that was done with non-cash transactions.”

Human Rights and Civil Liberties Concerns

Russia is riddled with concerns and earned a 16 out of 100 in Freedom House’s 2023 Freedom in the World report. Concerns in Russia are vast, but those directly related to the use of CBDCs include corruption and oppression of dissenting voices.

Rampant corruption “in the government and the business world is pervasive, and a lack of accountability enables officials to engage in malfeasance with impunity,” according to Freedom House. Furthermore, “Many analysts have argued that the political system is essentially a kleptocracy, a regime whose defining characteristic is the plunder of public wealth by ruling elites.” The existence of pervasive corruption is a major concern with CBDCs because it calls into question any promises that might be made by the government to limit surveillance, control, or other risks of CBDCs. Furthermore, the existence of corruption calls into question whether CBDC policies might be designed to exert political favoritism through subsidies, price controls, or other targeted restrictions.

Efforts to restrict protests and dissenting voices are also all too common. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only seemed to exacerbate this issue. Freedom House reports that “Moscow cracked down on domestic dissent, including by criminalizing antiwar demonstrations in March.” Furthermore, “Some 13,500 people were arrested in early March, while nearly 2,400 more were detained within days of the September mobilization announcement.” Similar tactics have also been used to target political rivals. Again, as reported by Freedom House, “Opposition politicians and activists are frequently targeted with fabricated criminal cases and other forms of administrative harassment designed to prevent their participation in the political process.” Unfortunately, a CBDC could be used as another tool in this effort. Across the world, governments have often turned to freezing and seizing the money of activists, political rivals, and protestors to undermine the opposition. A CBDC would make such initiatives easier by allowing governments to take direct control of each citizen’s finances.

For additional information on concerns regarding violations of human rights and civil liberties, see the following reports by Amnesty International, Financial Tyranny Index, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, Privacy International, and the U.S. Department of State. For additional information on concerns regarding the risks of CBDCs, see the following webpage and report by the Cato Institute: The Risks of CBDCs and Central Bank Digital Currency: Assessing the Risks and Dispelling the Myths.

For additional information regarding metrics, the methodology page explains each of the data points and provides their respective sources.