The participating banks expressed their readiness to proceed with the CBDC pilot. 



The central bank digital currency (CBDC) trial rollout by The Bank of Russia has been postponed indefinitely. The participating institutions have, however, indicated that they are prepared to start the testing.

The CBDC pilot won't begin on April 1 as had been originally promised, according to the state-owned TASS on March 28. This is because particular legislation has only been approved in the State Duma, the Federal Assembly's lower house, after passing through the first reading. The proposal might become law by the beginning of May, claims TASS.

Moreover, from 15 to 13 private banks are now a part of the trial program. Both one of the biggest insurance companies in the nation, Ingosstrakh, and some bank employees would act as test subjects for CBDC retail payments.

Executives from the bank expressed enthusiasm for the project. Vitaly Kopysov, Sinara Bank's director of innovations, said to reporters:

“The use of smart contracts should reduce the operational load of banks and make the deals transparent, which not only will reduce the chances of the misuse of government and banks’ funds, but ultimately simplify the control over the existing contracts.”

Even though it will be on a small scale, the future pilot will feature genuine operations and customers. The initial stage won't be open to the broader public because the banks will only start the pilot with selected customers. The Bank of Russia intends to decide how to scale the digital ruble beyond the initial phase. 

Related: European Banking Federation shares its vision of digital euro, wCBDC, bank tokens

The consumer CBDC pilot, which was initially scheduled for 2024, was moved up sooner since the Russian central bank was looking for a SWIFT replacement due to Western economic sanctions against Russia.

(DAVID ATTLEE, Cointelegraph, 2023)