Over 20 Russian banks now testing digital ruble as regulators add more regions to pilot

Financial authorities in the Russian Federation are expanding the geography and participation in the pilot project for the nation’s digital ruble currency.

The sovereign coin is already being introduced to some of the more distant corners of the vast country, including annexed Crimea, ahead of the full-scale launch scheduled to begin in 2026.

Digital ruble hits 90,000 transactions

Russia seems serious about imposing its central bank digital currency (CBDC). The third form of the national fiat, after cash and bank money, is entering budget payments, while the number of users and participating territories continues to grow.

Trials with the digital version of the Russian ruble are set to increase their coverage, according to a high-ranking representative of its issuer, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR).

The pilot project for the digital ruble is expanding while access to its platform is widening, said Deputy Governor Zulfia Kakhrumanova. Quoted by TASS on Monday, she detailed:

“More than 20 banks are participating in the pilot, and over 90,000 transactions have been conducted. Around 2,500 users are involved.”

“We are gradually and systematically expanding the number of participants and broadening the range of services,” the central bank executive emphasized.

After initial development and testing, Russia launched the pilot project for the digital ruble in 2023, with a limited number of users, among which banking institutions, businesses and private individuals.

The CBR was planning to open the CBDC system for public use in 2025, but decided to postpone the launch by a year to allow organizations to prepare properly.

According to the latest schedule published in June, the state-issued coin will be introduced in several stages, with the first one starting on September 1, 2026, when Russia’s largest banks must be able to service digital ruble operations for their clients.

In the meantime, testing has been spreading to new areas of implementation and territories of the Russian Federation.

Kakhrumanova reminded that earlier this year, the central bank, together with the Finance Ministry and the Federal Treasury, launched smart contracts based on the digital ruble in the republics of Chuvashia and Tatarstan, as well as the southern Russian city of Rostov.

Sanctioned Crimea to join digital ruble experiment

Republic of Crimea, the region Russia took from Ukraine in 2014, which has been the subject of Western sanctions, will be included in an experiment to introduce the digital ruble to the budgeting process, Russian lawmaker Anatoly Aksakov announced this week.

Aksakov, who heads the Financial Markets Committee at the lower house of Russian parliament, the State Duma, is convinced that the CBDC has great potential to increase transparency in the spending of government-allocated money.

Quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency, the Russian deputy explained that the digital currency will guarantee the targeted use of state funds, which are currently often spent for unintended purposes.

Anatoly Aksakov believes that the digital ruble will be successfully adopted in the public sector and expects the number of users to grow.

He also noted he was the first Russian official and Crimean to receive a digital ruble salary. Speaking for the Sputnik in Crimea radio, he remarked:

“I’m the first person to receive a salary in digital rubles … a Crimean guy from the village of Vilino, paid at a cafe and donated to charitable foundations.”

While authorities in Moscow scrambled to speed up the introduction of the Russian CBDC, following a call for wide implementation by President Putin this spring, the Bank of Russia itself recently admitted it does not expect mass adoption by the population.

The main positives of the central bank digital currency will be felt in the public sector and the economy as a whole, according to statements by a top advisor to CBR Governor Elvira Nabiullina in November. Kirill Tremasov saw no obvious advantages for consumers over regular bank money.

Last week, Russia’s Federal Treasury, an executive body overseeing the execution of the country’s federal budget, announced it’s starting to accept payments in digital rubles from January 1.

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