The digital ruble lacks status

Despite the widespread discussion of the introduction of the digital ruble, market participants, as it turned out, still have many questions, including the most basic ones. So, according to Kommersant’s information, bankers turned to the Central Bank with a request to clarify what, in fact, is a digital ruble – a third form of money or a non-cash currency. They are also interested in whether the operator of the digital ruble platform, which is the regulator, will compensate credit institutions for the costs of providing customers with access to the platform. Experts note that the answer to the question, what is the digital ruble, seriously depends on law enforcement practice in relation to operations with it.

As it became known to Kommersant, the Association of Banks of Russia (ADB) sent a letter to the Central Bank with a request to clarify certain provisions on the digital ruble. The letter notes that “in society, there is an extremely wary attitude towards the introduction of the digital ruble on the part of citizens / consumers of financial services.”

Bankers propose to introduce a direct ban on forcing citizens to open a digital account, limit the increase in tariffs for the services of a digital ruble operator for individuals, and fix the inadmissibility of a digital ruble platform operator making changes to an agreement with unilaterally.

In addition, participants are asked to clarify whether banks will be required to become participants in the digital ruble platform and, if so, what they need to improve in their infrastructure for this. In their opinion, from the adopted documents “it is not possible to establish the procedure for concluding a digital ruble account agreement by users” and the legal nature of the digital ruble account agreement. Questions also arose with the procedure for debiting digital rubles from an account, and there are still a number of points that require ambiguous interpretation or are not described explicitly.

The Bank of Russia told Kommersant that they would consider the Association’s appeal “in the prescribed manner.”

Lawyers note that although the laws and regulations necessary for the start of the functioning of the digital ruble have been prepared for a long time, they “remain raw and raise many questions.” In particular, according to the lawyer of Iontsev, Lyakhovsky and Partners Igor Dubov, there is no elaboration of conceptual legal issues related to the digital ruble at the scientific level.

One of the key issues is to determine the legal nature of the digital ruble, which was previously classified as non-cash in the Civil Code, and now the Bank of Russia calls it the third form of the ruble, Mikhail Romanov, lawyer at the Lawyers and Business ICA, explains.

“The procedure for applying a huge number of regulations written for non-cash funds depends on the solution of this issue,” he says. According to Mr. Romanov, it is important to understand that the more vague and broad interpretations in the law, the greater the opportunity to change the rules on the go with by-laws, therefore, the less guarantees for users of the digital ruble.

In turn, Yury Brisov, partner at Digital & Analogue Partners, notes that understanding the legal nature of the digital ruble will determine what provisions of Russian laws apply to it, what judicial practice is relevant to potential disputes with the digital ruble, and so on.

The Association is concerned about the costs associated with the digital ruble.

“Banks will have to monitor compliance with the legislation on legalization when making transactions with the digital ruble, but it is not clear how banks will be compensated for such costs if the transactions of individuals are carried out without a commission,” says Igor Dubov.

Maxim Kolomiytsev, founder of the DFA.su digital assets portal, notes that based on the example of pilot projects, it can be concluded that the creation of a digital ruble infrastructure on the side of banks is paid for by them. At the same time, according to him, the project is complex, many issues are resolved with banks in relatively informal communications, and consensus is sought in the process. According to Mr. Kolomiytsev, in the first editions “not all the wording is accurate, so that in the future it would be possible to refine the technical details on the pilots, without changing the regulation.”

Maxim Buylov