Russia’s digital ruble accounts surge, mainly out of curiosity

Homepage > News > Finance > Russia’s digital ruble accounts surge, mainly out of curiosity TL;DR: Russia’s digital ruble opened strong, with over 220,000 accounts in its first month, triple the central bank’s target. But surveys point to weak engagement, and big banks like Sberbank expect little real impact. Meanwhile, a new investigation reveals how the sanctioned A7 Network moved hundreds of tons of cash rubles through Russian markets and a state-owned bank to pay overseas recipients, mostly in China. Key Takeaways: The digital ruble drew strong initial interest, but low engagement among account holders and skepticism from leading banks suggest its everyday role may stay small. A7 Network built a hawala-style cash pipeline that processed at least 283 tons of rubles (over $14 billion) in under a year, obscuring the origin of funds from nearly every bank in the chain except Promsvyazbank and A7 itself. Russia’s digital ruble charged out of the gate in terms of the number of new accounts, but account holder surveys suggest the path ahead just gets rockier. On September 1, Russia joined the ranks of the handful of nations that have introduced a central bank digital currency ...