Russia is Launching a new system for cross-border payments. The country’s new alternative approach will have no restriction on the use of digital currencies.
Keynote
- Russia’s new payment system is “bound by no restrictions” where digital currencies could be used in cross-border payments.
Russia is introducing a new alternative cross-border payment system with no restrictions on the usage of digital currencies, the Russian state-owned TASS news agency quoted Finance Minister Anton Siluanov as saying on April 24.
“We are launching an alternative system of payments based on modern technologies (digital financial assets, digital currencies).”
Anton Siluanov
The minister also stated that digital currencies might be used to settle cross-border payment obligations and that conversations about this are in their early stages.
“Digital currencies could be used in cross-border payments. This is just the earliest phase of discussions, but the future lies with the use of the digital ruble, the digital yuan, and other similar currencies.”
He further stated,
“This is a system of payments that is bound by no restrictions. Two parties come to an agreement, make settlement payments, and no other country could step in and freeze such payments.”
Because of the economic sanctions imposed by the United States and other Western nations following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia has increased its attempts to lessen its dependency on the US dollar. The United States and its Western allies have seized more than $300 billion in frozen Russian central bank foreign currency assets.
The Bank of Russia has been investigating the creation of a digital currency, the digital ruble, to diversify away from the US dollar.
According to a report published in July 2021 by the US Congressional Research Service, the Russian government accelerated its de-dollarization efforts in 2014, noting that the introduction of a digital ruble would further reduce Russia’s reliance on Western (and dollar-centered) payments infrastructure.
