The Central Bank of Russia releases plans for digitizing national payments by 2023

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) released a comprehensive strategy for the next three years of payments development in the country. Prominent among the CBR’s strategy is an emphasis on its digital ruble. The CBR is planning for open APIs that will allow the digital ruble to integrate with any other private payment platform, and for the platform to offer offline functionality. It expects an initial prototype to be ready by end-2021, to be followed by initial pilots in 2022, and an implementation roadmap by end-2022. 

Use of distributed ledger technology in post-trade processes

The European Central Bank published a report on the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) in securities post-trade processes. It categorizes securities issuance and post-trade processes into models depending on how DLT is used in each case, drawing implications for the use of DLT at different stages of the securities life cycle, from issuance to custody and settlement. It recommends that, in order to prevent market fragmentation, the adoption of DLT-based solutions should be based on common practices and standards that enable DLT systems to interact with both each other and conventional systems.