Column by Ksenia Dementieva on caution when launching a digital ruble

On Wednesday, the Central Bank announced that trial operations with the digital ruble would begin on August 15. Clients and employees of 13 banks (including VTB, AK Barsa, MTS Bank, PSB, Sovcombank, Sinara, Rosbank and TKB) will participate in them. At the first stage, the number of clients in the pilot project will be limited – about 600 people and 30 legal entities from 11 cities. “We will test operations on this small group, all the processes and procedures…,” said Olga Skorobogatova, First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank.

First, it will test the opening and replenishment of wallets, transfers and payment for purchases on bank customers. Another 19 banks want to join the project. In 2024, dynamic QR code transactions and transfers between legal entities are expected to become available. The functionality for automatic payments will also be expanded. The introduction of the digital ruble into wide circulation is planned to begin in 2025.

It is noteworthy that the number of participants in the pilot did not include the country’s largest Sberbank and one of the leaders in the payment market, Tinkoff Bank. And if Sberbank traditionally opposes the innovations of the Central Bank in terms of settlements, reasonably believing that new services reduce its market share and income from payments and transfers, then Tinkoff has not yet shown such disloyalty to the ideas of the regulator.

Both banks left without comment requests about the reasons for their unwillingness to participate in the Central Bank’s project. Kommersant’s interlocutors from among the participants in the pilot project assure that both Sberbank and Tinkoff were originally in it, but “then they changed their position.” They didn’t give an official reason. But the interlocutors of Kommersant agree that both players are trying to delay the moment of entering the digital ruble as much as possible so as not to lose income and customers.

The bankers’ fears may be justified. The experience of implementing the Faster Payments System (FPS) of the Central Bank clearly demonstrated that the economy is more important for clients of credit institutions than attachment. To date, according to Olga Skorobogatova, half of the citizens of the Russian Federation use SPB, although initially “they were skeptical about it.” At this stage, transactions with the digital ruble will be free for individuals, and for businesses, the appearance of the instrument will mean a sharp reduction in acquiring commissions.

However, in contrast to the situation with the SBP, now the regulator prefers not to escalate the situation and not to confront the banks-refuseniks, forcing them to join the project. And here the words of Napoleon Bonaparte come to mind: sometimes to win a war, you need to lose the battle.