Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has unveiled the country’s new payment system allowing crypto use in cross-border transactions.
The announcement came nearly one week after Russia’s central bank, the Bank of Russia, prepared a draft law to enable certain institutions to use crypto and other digital assets for international trade.
- The new system will offer an alternative to the existing payment systems and be based on modern financial technologies.
- The
future iterations of the system will include the use of the digital
ruble, digital yuan, and other central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)
to boost the de-dollarization efforts.
- The
system will also prevent any third-party country from interfering and
freezing payments other than two countries participating in the
agreement.
- The
Russian central bank’s earlier statements pointed out that the country
would build special institutions that would operate crypto transfers to
foreign entities and crypto mining.
- The
Bank of Russia also said their entire international payment system
could be based on national digital currencies, undergoing a
transformation of five to seven years.
- Speaking
at a recent event, the central bank’s chair, Elvira Nabiullina, stated
that they support the use of digital assets by the state agencies for
settlements with foreign entities, though they oppose the crypto use
within the state.
- Russia
had to reduce its dependence on the U.S. dollar (USD) due to the
sanctions imposed by the European Union (EU) and the U.S. towards the
country following its invasion of Ukraine.
- In
July 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin banned payments with
digital assets, including crypto, for goods and services across the
nation by signing a bill.
- The country’s central bank most recently postponed the launch
of the pilot of its CBDC, also known as the digital ruble, expected to
start on April 1 since the related legislation has not been ready yet.
