The Russian central bank wants to use the digital ruble to help companies by making financial intermediaries superfluous.

Russia’s digital ruble is said to cut business costs, but it could also reduce profits for commercial banks, according to Elvira Nabiullina, chairwoman of the Bank of Russia

At a meeting of Opora Russia, a non-governmental organization of small and medium-sized enterprises, on December 3, Nabiullina said that a digital ruble could reduce the profits of commercial banks through commissions and transaction fees.

She also stated that central bank digital currency was a natural evolution in streamlining financial services:

„This is a natural step in the evolution of the financial system: the financial intermediaries should weigh on the economy and make money with new products and services instead of profiting from their monopoly and the lack of alternatives. We believe that small and medium-sized enterprises definitely should should benefit from it. “

She also mentioned a number of advantages of a digital ruble. Including, for example, safer and faster payments. „We are now thinking about several models in which the digital ruble can exist, in which the interaction of customers, central bank and commercial banks is organized in different ways, but these advantages remain in all models. These are fast, reliable and secure payments „as she explained.

In October 2020, Nabiullina claimed that a digital ruble could not have the same level of anonymity as cash. The Bank of Russia wants to strengthen user privacy, however. Shortly before, Russia’s central bank had officially published its CBDC plans on October 13th . According to the bank, a digital ruble could soon be used as an additional form of money alongside cash.