Russia’s financial regulators agrees on crypto use for international payments

Russia’s deputy finance min­is­ter Alex­ei Moi­seev has said that the country’s apex bank and the finance min­istry reached an agree­ment that would allow the use of cryp­tocur­ren­cy for inter­na­tion­al pay­ments, Rus­sia-based Kom­m­er­sant report­ed on Sept. 22.

Accord­ing to the report, the new devel­op­ment is geared toward allow­ing Rus­sians access to dig­i­tal wallets.

Moi­seev report­ed­ly said:

“We have a bill in this part already agreed with the Cen­tral Bank on the whole … It gen­er­al­ly describes how to acquire cryp­tocur­ren­cy, what can be done with it, and how it can or can­not be set­tled with it in the first place in cross-bor­der settlements.”

Pre­vi­ous­ly, the Bank of Rus­sia had exten­sive­ly opposed cryp­to use. How­ev­er, with the coun­try fac­ing sev­er­al sanc­tions from west­ern author­i­ties, the country’s Prime Min­is­ter, Mikhail Mishus­tin, opined that the finan­cial sys­tem might have to adjust to the new eco­nom­ic reality.

Moi­seev shared the same view, adding that “peo­ple are open­ing cryp­to wal­lets out­side the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion, it is nec­es­sary to do this in Rus­sia with enti­ties super­vised by the cen­tral bank, which are required to com­ply with Anti-Mon­ey Laun­der­ing and Know Your Cus­tomer requirements.”

Mishus­tin direct­ed the finan­cial reg­u­la­tors to devel­op an agree­able reg­u­la­tion for cryp­to by Dec. 19.

Mean­while, Russia’s rela­tion­ship with cryp­to remains hazy as Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin signed a law on July 14 that banned using cryp­tocur­ren­cies as a local means of payment.