Maxim Builov’s column on the impact of the digital ruble on banking excess

The Bank of Russia has published tariffs for operations with the digital ruble for citizens and companies. The digital ruble, although it will be the third form of the Russian currency and will be able to freely turn into its other two incarnations, is technologically very different from them. The main thing is that all digital accounts are opened with the Central Bank and all transfers and payments go through it. Therefore, it is logical that the regulator appoints and receives a fee for this.

The Central Bank will not take money from either citizens or companies for opening an account. Payments and transfers of digital rubles for individuals will also be made free. But for accepting payment for goods and services in digital rubles, a legal entity will have to pay 0.3% of the payment amount (but not more than 1.5 thousand rubles), and transfers between accounts of legal entities will cost 15 rubles. a piece. But the tariffs will come into effect from 2025, and before that everything is free, since the digital ruble itself will operate in a pilot mode.

Nevertheless, judging by the announced tariffs, the Bank of Russia continues its policy of creating an entire financial market within itself and even developing competition on it. First, the Mir payment system was created to compete with international payment systems. Then – the system of fast payments (SBP), which began to compete with the “Mir”. Now here is the digital ruble, which is already competing with the SBP.

Thus, the tariff for payment using the digital ruble turned out to be lower than for cards and SBP, but here the Central Bank will no longer share with banks. The digital ruble also has an advantage in transfers – in the SBP, amounts over 100 thousand rubles. are subject to a commission of 0.5%, and in digital rubles all of them will be free. For legal entities, the tariff is also several times lower than a bank transfer – 15 rubles. against 40-60 rubles. for non-urgent and 300-500 rubles. for urgent translation.

Given that it is the Central Bank that will regulate the number of digital and non-digital rubles in the economy, then we can safely say that the regulator is gaining even greater control over the banking system. Indeed, according to the relevant law, banks will not be able to receive interest income from digital rubles. At the same time, banks will have to reduce tariffs for transfers in order to compete with the prices for transactions in digital rubles. This will reduce their commission income. We will have to come up with new options for compensating for losses at the expense of clients, not excluding new developed forms of misselling.

A new round of the regulator’s fight against this eternal evil will reduce the number of banks. The rest will reduce expenses, and with them branches and all kinds of “goodies” in the form of cashbacks and increased interest on account balances. This option seems to be a quite probable outcome of the Central Bank’s struggle for increased competition in the interests of bank customers. Everything according to Viktor Chernomyrdin – “we wanted the best, but it turned out as always.”