For almost a month, 13 Russian commercial banks have been piloting a digital ruble. The Association of Russian Banks (ABD) has predicted the launch of the new central bank digital currency (CBDC) could lead to a 0.5% increase in interest rates for borrowers.
Although the use of the digital ruble is currently restricted, the Bank of Russia has proposed a conversion limit of 300,000 rubles ($3,170) per month into the digital currency. This volume of deposits flowing out of banks could significantly reduce the supply of private Russian credit. However, Alexey Voylukov, the Vice President of the ABD, told Russian news outlet Izvestia that these projections depend heavily on the rate of take up.
According to Voylukov, on August 1, Russian banks held 95 trillion rubles ($1 trillion), of which just over a third is in current accounts that don’t earn interest. The ADB estimates that around 15% of the current account balance, or 5.4 trillion rubles ($57 billion), will flow into the digital ruble.
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