Russia may launch digital rouble by July ’25 – c.bank governor

Elvira Nabiullina, Governor of the Central Bank of Russian Federation (CBR), said on Tuesday that if the digital ruble passes successful testing, its broad adoption could commence as soon as July 2025.

“Now I can say that if everything goes as we plan further on, with pilots implemented successfully, we will be able to shift from tests to massively introducing the digital rouble from July 2025. We target those dates, though it will be a gradual process, a gradual process of using digital roubles,” Nabiullina noted while addressing the Federation Council.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently stated that the digital rouble platform has demonstrated both efficiency and reliability during its testing phase.

The CBR has been running a pilot project with actual digital roubles since August 15, 2023.  This initial phase includes testing active operations such as opening digital rouble wallets for banks and clients (both individuals and businesses), transferring digital roubles between clients, and making payments at retail and service establishments.

Attribution: TASS