The Central Bank will have a ruble more – Newspaper Kommersant No. 7 (7452) dated 01/17/2023
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The State Duma Council put on the agenda for the first reading the bill on the digital ruble, introduced by the deputies on New Year’s Eve. The document empowers the Bank of Russia to create and manage the infrastructure for the functioning of a new form of national currency. The Central Bank is counting on the adoption of the bill in the spring session, and they promise to start a pilot project using real digital rubles in April.
On January 16, the Council of the State Duma considered and put on the agenda for the first reading the law on the digital ruble. The purpose of the bill, in the explanatory note, is called “development of the payment infrastructure”, “increasing the availability, speed, convenience and security of settlements while reducing costs” by “legislative consolidation of approaches to the transfer of digital rubles”. The document amends the laws “On the Bank of Russia”, “On Banks and Banking Activities”, “On the National Payment System” and a number of others.
In fact, the bill is a framework, and the Central Bank will develop a detailed regulatory framework. In particular, according to the document, the regulator will have the right to create or participate in the capital of organizations necessary to create a digital ruble platform and ensure its functioning. The Bank of Russia will also set tariffs for the services of the platform operator and the amount of remuneration paid to its participants. The Central Bank will determine the maximum fee charged by platform participants from its users and the maximum values for the amount of transactions with digital rubles and balances on digital wallets.
The regulator will develop a procedure, a list of transactions and terms for providing credit institutions with customers the opportunity to conduct transactions with digital rubles. He is responsible for organizing and ensuring the uninterrupted operation of the platform, responsibility for the safety of digital rubles and the correct accounting of information about transactions with them.
Alexey Zabotkin, Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia, in an interview RBC December 27, 2022:
“When developing platforms for the digital ruble, the possibility of its pairing with other digital currencies of central banks was initially laid down.”
As Roman Prokhorov, head of the board of the Financial Innovations Association, explained, “as a result, the Bank of Russia becomes the operator of the digital ruble platform and receives the authority to ensure its operation and protect the interests of platform users.” According to him, the date of entry into force of the main provisions (April 1) corresponds to the plans of the Central Bank to conduct a pilot project.
“It is also provided that the Board of Directors of the Bank of Russia determines the rules and participants in piloting operations with digital rubles this year,” said Roman Prokhorov. Now 15 banks are participating in the pilot project, they have already tested transfers between citizens’ wallets (c2c; see “Kommersant” dated December 23, 2022). In the near future, pilot banks plan to start testing c2b transfers, and for April the Central Bank has planned to start real transfers of digital rubles between a limited circle of individuals (see “Kommersant” dated January 9).
At the same time, Kirill Nikitin, head of the Vegas Lex law firm, notes that new provisions will need to be introduced into the legislation regarding the procedure for creating and administering the necessary infrastructure. “In this regard, either the introduction of a separate chapter into the current law regulating the procedure for issuing a digital ruble, or the adoption of a by-law and at the same time a reference rule to the law will be required,” he says.
The bill separately states that the digital ruble is not a digital currency.
“The digital ruble is an independent form of the national currency of the Russian Federation along with cash and non-cash funds, and according to the law “On Digital Financial Assets…”, a digital currency is defined as a set of electronic data that, despite their use as a means of payment, are not the monetary unit of the Russian Federation,” explains Nikolai Titov, co-founder of the law firm atLegal.
As Kirill Nikitin notes, the basic principle underlying the digital ruble is emission, not surrogate. On the contrary, the concept of digital currency, according to him, is based on decentralization and the absence of a single center of issue or control. At the same time, according to Georgy Okromchedlishvili, senior analyst at the ITS WM multi-family office, the ability to store the digital ruble in smart wallets “allows you not to depend on banking risks, since no matter which private bank you open such an account, the ruble will not be on it. controlled by the bank – only the Central Bank.
The Central Bank expects the adoption of the bill in the spring session. In parallel, they said, work is underway to form the necessary regulatory framework: a pilot project using real digital rubles is planned to begin in April.
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