Foreign media: Russia signs law allowing the use of digital assets for payments that avoid sanctions

This week, Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing the use of digital financial assets (DFA) for foreign trade payments. Russia’s DFA concept includes tokenized assets and financial instruments issued through central bank regulators. The central bank wants to ensure that these assets do not start to replace the ruble and therefore prohibits the use of DFA for payments. This situation still exists at home, but in order to avoid sanctions due to the Russo-Ukrainian war, they are looking for alternative solutions. The legislation changes the definition of certain monetary transactions to include digital rights such as DFA. In addition, the central bank can also set conditions for using DFA for payments. The Central Bank of Russia is a strong supporter of anti-money laundering. However, the Russian Federation Parliament said in a statement that “due to existing sanctions risks, federal law does not require the provision of information on the beneficial owners of persons issuing digital financial assets.” The new law also allows the transfer of insurance contracts through digital platforms , non-state pensions and long-term savings. Generally, such assets are not transferable.