“If we talk about individuals, it’s about 600 people, if we talk about trade and service enterprises – 30 legal entities and 11 cities,” the official said, adding that the number of participants will expand after all operations are tested on the first group;
.
Moscow authorities have already announced tests of the state digital currency on public transportation passengers.
“The Moscow Metro has traditionally acted as a testbed for innovative developments. We plan to start testing sales for digital rubles of Troika souvenir cards and “Purse” ticket balance cards. Based on the results of the pilot project, we will work out the possibility of introducing the digital ruble on other types of urban transportation,” promised Maxim Liksutov, Moscow’s deputy mayor for transportation.
Meanwhile, Sovcombank’s first deputy chairman Sergei Khotimsky assured that commercial banks are going to compete with the digital ruble platform.
“We will, of course, compete with the digital ruble. We will try to do the same as it was in the case of cash, when banks as a community created services, introduced mechanisms to make non-cash money more profitable and interesting. And we will continue to do so. We want the central account of the individual to remain the bank account,” said the banker.
Earlier, Olga Skorobogatova said that pilot transactions with digital rubles will be launched as early as August 15.
The law on the introduction of the digital ruble into the banking system was passed recently. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation, which is assigned the status of the CBDC platform operator, now has the right to refuse any commercial bank to conduct a transaction. Several large banks have recently announced that they are willing to test real-world transactions with CBDC.