Reuters reported on the 21st (local time) that Russia plans to enable international payments through digital ruble by next year and expand countries that use its credit card payment system.
Elvira Nabiulina, president of the Russian Central Bank, attended the House of Representatives’ State Duma and said, “We plan to enable digital ruble transactions next year,” adding, “Digital ruble can be used in some international payments.”
President Nabiullina said, “We are pushing for the introduction of digital ruble as one of our top priorities.”
To that end, the company is currently making prototypes and conducting inspection with the financial sector, and plans to start pilot transactions from next year.”
It also introduced that it plans to increase the number of countries that use Mir cards, its own payment brand of NSPK, a payment and settlement agency under the central bank.
Mir Card is Russia’s largest payment system created in 2015 by NSPK, which is in charge of processing payments for all cards, including Visa and MasterCard, which occur in the country.
Governor Butterfly Woolina then said further cuts in the benchmark interest rate will be considered at future meetings.
However, he did not mention whether the decision to cut interest rates will be made at the meeting scheduled for the 29th.
Russia’s central bank raised interest rates to 20 percent in February and cut them to 17 percent on the 8th.
Andrei Kostin, CEO of VTB Bank, Russia’s second-largest commercial bank, said the central bank expects to cut interest rates to 15 percent this month, predicting that interest rates will fall to 12 to 13 percent by the end of the year.
According to an expert survey conducted by Russia’s central bank, inflation, which is currently 17.6%, is expected to rise to 22% this year and the economy is expected to grow 9.2% this year.
Meanwhile, Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, said on the same day that it had suspended accounts of Russian citizens and companies with deposits of more than 10,000 euros under European Union sanctions on Russia.
Binance said it banned new deposits and transactions between Russians and companies, but said withdrawals from existing accounts were possible.