The Russian Ministry of Finance has reportedly begun working with the governments of “friendly” countries to establish a cross-border payment platform based on the use of stablecoins.
According to a Tuesday note from the Russian state news agency TASS, Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev said the government was looking to create the settlement platform to avoid the use of US dollars and euros. The finance minister said the Russian government would need to impose additional regulations to enact the platform between itself and friendly nations – possibly including China, Belarus and North Korea.
“We offer mutually acceptable tokenized instruments to be used on these platforms, which are essentially clearing platforms that we are currently developing with other countries,” Moiseev said. “Stablecoins can be pegged to some generally recognized instrument, for example gold, whose value is clear and appreciable to all parties involved.”
Russia has been subject to severe sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union after the invasion of Ukraine in February. The EU announced in March that it planned to remove many Russian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, or SWIFT, messaging system, and the US Office of Foreign Assets Control added several entities and individuals. Russians to its list of Specially Designated Nationals.
Amid the war in Ukraine, reports have suggested that Russian officials have been exploring the use of cryptocurrencies to evade imposed sanctions. In July, President Vladimir Putin signed a bill that prohibits the use of digital assets as a means of payment, but the country’s central bank has considered the use of cryptocurrencies for international payments.
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