The recent news comes in line with earlier public announcements from the Bank of Russia. As such, Nabiullina said that the bank was exploring the opportunity to launch a CBDC in June 2019. However, the authority didn’t expect to roll out such initiatives in the near future, as reported at the time.
While Russia is planning to follow other countries in testing their CBDCs, France recently revealed its intention to become the first global jurisdiction to pilot its own digital euro project. On Dec. 4, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, the governor of the Bank of France, announced that the bank will start testing the digital euro project by the end of the first quarter of 2020.