The Bank of Russia is continuously progressing with its central bank digital currency (CBDC) development, according to a HeadHunter survey. This survey suggested that few Russians are now ready to accept their salary payments in the digital ruble.
This survey involved 3,000 Russians and it suggested that many people strongly disagree with receiving their salaries in state-controlled digital currency.
Nearly 50% of the Russian respondents mainly objected to getting salaries in the digital currency in a new survey conducted by the local recruitment site. Just 11% of the involved respondents mentioned that they were ready to get their money in the digital ruble, while about 41% said that they were now ‘categorically opposed’ to getting paid in the CBDC, as reported on Wednesday by local news agency Izvestia.
Russia is currently preparing to roll out digital ruble testing next January, as many as 48% of the respondents said that they were not sure whether they wanted to receive salaries in the state-owned digital currency.
Among the few survey participants that seem ready to get paid in the digital ruble, half of them said that they agreed to receive 100% of their salary in the forthcoming digital currency. Another half of the respondents said that they would prefer to get not more than 50% of their salaries in the CBDC.
This news comes moments after the Russian central bank created the first pilot group for testing the digital ruble, bringing in 12 major Russian banks, including the state-backed VTB and Sberbank. Private banks like Tinkoff Bank are also participating. Based on the Izvestia report, these banks currently process salary payments for up to 87% of the Russian workers.
As previously noted, the Bank of Russia officially unveiled its plans to issue a CBDC in late 2021. The central bank appears to be considering using the digital ruble to distribute salaries after the digital currency gets publicly adopted.
The bank also said that users would have a chance to store and transact the upcoming digital currency using an analog of a bank card. Earlier in 2021, a Russian government official Anatoly Aksakov insisted that the digital ruble is the ‘highest form of money.’
