TL;DR Breakdown
- The Association of Russian Banks says Digital Ruble poses a number of risks.
- Russian government not in a haste to implement the currency.
Russian Banks through their association, ARB, has released a statement saying that Russia’s digital currency project, Digital Ruble, could pose a number of risks and challenges that could include cybersecurity and fraud.
The study was carried out using 17 ARB affiliated institutions in Russia that accounted for over 50% of the assets in the country’s banking system. The study claimed these challenges were the same as those associated with cashless transactions run by the banks.
The ARB specified that the Digital Ruble also has some cybersecurity challenges attached to it. The body noted that online transactions were prone to attacks that could lead to an unauthorized access into customer accounts and data. This could result in issues of identity theft or digital currency theft through customer account hacks, also leading to identification troubles.
The body concluded that all models of the Digital Ruble being proposed by the Central bank of Russia are susceptible to this level of attack.
Digital Ruble offline implementation also has some risks attached
The ARB further pointed out that the proposed CBDC project of the Russian government also has some risks attached to its offline implementation. One of such risks is the inability to trace any fraud related transaction carried out offline, by the authorities.
ARB claims such offline payments would drastically reduce the government’s ability to trace and prevent fraudulent payments. This could be very dangerous to the potency of the currency’s offline model.
A top official of the Russian government, Dmitry Peskov, had earlier said the country was not in a haste to implement the digital currency because of the level of risks attached to the currency. According to him, the country requires enough time to assess the currency properly.
