Russian financial institutions are about to launch the first customer pilot of the digital currency (CBDC) of the country's central bank on April 1, 2023.

Olga Skorobogatova, the first governor of Russia's central bank, has indicated that the central bank will soon issue its first real-world digital ruble deal, involving 13 local banks or several stores.

According to the Russian news agency, the local news agency, the senior official stressed that the upcoming CBDC pilot will involve real customers in Russia, but will be limited to a certain number of transactions and customers.

"people plan to run a new data rouble project on April 1, which involves personal transfers and payments from trading and service companies," Scolobogatova said at the Ural Financial Cyber Security Forum. " She added that the participating banks had already been technically confirmed that they were ready to start running the data rouble.

The president responded that in the first phase, ordinary customers would not be able to participate in the pilot because financial institutions would enter the pilot with selected users. Skrobogatova indicated that after the first pilot phase, Russian financial institutions plan to make clear how to further expand the size of the data rouble.

Skolobogatova's latest announcement will be released after the central bank officially launched a route map of the rouble in June 2022. The customer CBDC pilot was originally planned for 2024, but was extended to an earlier date, as Russia's central bank was looking for an alternative to the SWIFT payment platform at a time when Western countries imposed sanctions on Russia against North Korea.

The news came as some senior Russian officials claimed that Russia's central bank was working on a token for potential gold in cross-border transactions. Vladimir Chistyukhin, the first president of Russian financial institutions, believes that this "spot roll" will help Russia create a new eye-catching investment wealth management product and establish a prescribed method of payment in international trade practice.