Russia Endorses Measures Against Digital Ruble Money Laundering

The Federation Council has approved a law extending AML regulations to participants of the digital ruble platform. 

On May 20, the State Duma passed the document in its second and third readings. Initially, the bill proposed centralized control over asset transactions by the Central Bank. In the final version, this control is shared between the regulator and commercial banks.

“Control is divided depending on how users will transmit instructions for digital ruble transactions to the platform—through a bank or directly to the operator,” commented the Central Bank. 

Meanwhile, banks will retain functions for client identification, detecting suspicious transactions, and implementing other financial monitoring measures.

The Central Bank, in turn, is empowered to track transactions, categorize clients by risk level, and liaise with supervisory authorities.

The digital ruble law came into force on August 1, 2023. In the same month, the Central Bank launched a testing program involving 15 banks and about 50 companies at the time of writing.

At the end of 2024, the Bank of Russia, the Ministry of Finance, and the Treasury conducted tests of specific operations with the asset as part of the budgetary process.

In February, ForkLog reported the postponement of the planned July 1 mass launch of the digital national currency. Reasons included an “incompletely defined” legal framework for the project and a CBDC platform still under development.