India and Russia have started building a digital currency settlement channel for trade between the two countries, with Sberbank CEO Herman Gref confirming that both central banks are working on the system directly as bilateral commerce approaches 60 billion USD a year.
By Raj Patel | September 11, 2026
The Hook: Central Bank Digital Currencies Meet Real Trade
Speaking to reporters in New Delhi on Friday, where India is hosting the annual BRICS summit, Gref said the Bank of Russia and the Reserve Bank of India are developing the mechanism together. “Now it’s only beginning, but we see huge opportunity for digital currency for all settlements between the countries,” Gref said, according to Bloomberg.
In plain terms, the two countries want to use their state-backed digital currencies — Russia’s digital ruble and India’s digital rupee — to pay each other for goods like oil and machinery directly, instead of routing payments through the traditional dollar-based banking system. Think of it as two countries installing a direct phone line instead of routing every call through an international operator.
The stakes are large. India and Russia recorded nearly 60 billion USD in bilateral trade in fiscal 2026 and are targeting 100 billion USD by the end of the decade, according to the report.
On-Chain Evidence: Both Countries Already Have Working CBDC Rails
This is not a pipe dream on a whiteboard — both sides already have live digital currency systems to build on:
- Russia launched the digital ruble nationwide on Sept. 1, requiring its 12 systemically important banks to offer digital ruble wallets, with large retailers earning above 120 million rubles a year required to accept payments.
- India has been testing the digital rupee since 2022, starting with a wholesale pilot in November 2022 and adding a retail pilot the next month.
- The digital rupee in circulation grew from 234.04 crore rupees in fiscal 2024 to 1,016.46 crore rupees in fiscal 2025, according to the RBI’s annual report.
- Major Russian telecoms including MTS, Rostelecom and MegaFon prepared to accept digital ruble payments from September 1.
Gref emphasized Sberbank’s supporting role: “The Russian central bank and the central bank of India are working on this very precisely and we have tried to support them because we need this kind of instrument.” The Reserve Bank of India had not commented on the remarks at the time of the report.
The Core Conflict: Sanctions Pressure Meets BRICS Ambitions
The backdrop matters. Major Russian banks lost access to the SWIFT financial messaging network after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, forcing Moscow to hunt for alternative payment channels. A direct CBDC link with India would give both countries a settlement route that does not depend on Western financial infrastructure.
The India-Russia talks also sit inside a broader BRICS effort. The Kremlin said Thursday that digital currency settlements would be discussed with BRICS members and partner countries during the New Delhi summit. Earlier this year, the RBI proposed linking BRICS central bank digital currencies to support direct settlements between participating countries, including possible bilateral currency swap arrangements to handle trade imbalances.
Notably, Prime Minister Narendra Modi backs CBDC use for bilateral trade without framing it as a challenge to the U.S. dollar — a careful diplomatic line. Still, a working digital settlement network between two of the world’s largest economies would chip away at the dollar’s role as the default middleman for global trade.
There is also an old problem this could solve: Russia accumulated billions in rupees through trade as Indian oil purchases outpaced exports in the other direction, with funds parked in vostro accounts. Gref said that accumulation is “not the problem in our trade” anymore because Russian companies found ways to use the funds — but a two-way digital currency channel would make such imbalances easier to manage in the future.
Market Implications: What This Means for Crypto Investors
For regular investors, the story is less about trading gains and more about the direction of travel. CBDCs are state-issued — they are not Bitcoin, and they are not decentralized. But every major economy building digital settlement rails normalizes blockchain-based payment infrastructure at a global scale.
Russia’s parallel crypto framework, which took effect Sept. 1 alongside the digital ruble launch, allows eligible digital assets to be used for regulated cross-border commercial transactions — and the Bank of Russia proposed Bitcoin, Ether and USDT among the assets for regulated trading. That means real-world demand for crypto as a settlement instrument is being written into law, even as domestic retail payments remain restricted.
The bigger signal is institutional: when central banks and the largest lender in Russia coordinate on digital settlement, the technology stops being experimental. For context, Bitcoin was trading around 78,000 USD on Friday, according to the latest market data.
The Verdict: Early Days, but the Trend Is Clear
Gref himself stressed the work is “only beginning.” Building a cross-border CBDC system requires common technical standards, settlement rules and deep coordination between two central banks with different priorities. India’s RBI has not publicly confirmed the details yet, and no launch date exists.
Still, the combination of a live digital ruble, a maturing digital rupee, 60 billion USD in trade and active BRICS-level discussions makes this one of the most concrete CBDC projects anywhere in the world. Watch for two milestones: any RBI statement confirming the work, and any pilot transaction between the two systems.
The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
digital ruble settling oil and machinery trades against the digital rupee at 60B a year. sanctions workarounds got a product roadmap
a sberbank CEO announcing this on stage at BRICS in new delhi is the loudest possible way to do it. they clearly want it public
digital ruble settling oil and machinery payments against the digital rupee, SWIFT cut out entirely. sanctions engineering at central bank scale
Gref said it is only beginning, but with bilateral trade near 60 billion a year there is plenty of volume to make this stick
people said the same about mir payments and it never scaled past pilots. ill believe it when the first oil cargo actually settles on-chain
the digital ruble went live sept 1 for the 12 big banks so the wallet side already exists. the cargo is the part im waiting on too, but this is further along than mir ever got
mir comparison is fair but the digital ruble is already live for retail, this aint a powerpoint. still waiting on an actual oil cargo to settle tho, true
Fair point on mir, but mir never scaled because nobody outside russia accepted it. India as counterparty changes that math completely, everyone trades with india
CBDCs were pitched as retail payment upgrades and the first real use case is trade settlement between sanctioned economies. figures
right, and note there is no dollar leg anywhere in this design. ruble to rupee direct, that is the part washington will actually care about
No dollar leg is the entire point. Whether it survives contact with secondary sanctions on the rupee clearing banks is the real question.
sberbank has been under sanctions since 2022 and it is still announcing infrastructure plans on stage. at some point you have to admit the secondary sanctions threat has a shelf life
the retail pitch was always the cover story. india already has UPI, no state needed another retail rail. state to state settlement of oil and machinery was the actual product from day one
announcing this at the BRICS summit in New Delhi was not an accident. the venue is half the message
every CBDC is surveillance until proven otherwise. direct state to state settlement with no intermediary, hard pass for me
everyone staring at the tech while the actual risk is an Indian clearing bank getting hit with secondary sanctions the moment a dollar touches the chain of transactions. that is what kills this, not the plumbing
this is it. the tech works fine until a dollar clearing bank somewhere declines to touch the chain of transactions. then its frozen anyway
watching washington respond to this one will be fun. sanction the rails or sanction the operators, pick your nightmare
60 billion in bilateral trade and it still takes two central banks to babysit every settlement. progress i guess, but its correspondent banking with extra steps
a sberbank ceo announcing it on stage at brics means the political cover is already agreed. the tech is the easy part here
the real test is the trapped rupee problem. russian exporters spent two years sitting on billions in rupees they could not repatriate. does a digital settlement rail actually fix convertibility, or does it just move the imbalance faster
this is the question nobody answering. a rail moves payments faster, it does not create demand for rupees. unless india buys more russian goods the imbalance just sits there in tokenized form
Exactly the issue. Unless Russia starts buying Indian pharma and machinery at scale, the imbalance just sits there in tokenized form with better UX. The rail moves the problem, it does not solve it.
exactly. until russia buys indian pharma and machinery at scale the surplus just sits there in digital form. faster rails dont fix an imbalance
digital ruble live since sept 1, digital rupee piloted for years, and 60b of trade to settle. the pieces exist, the first real cargo settlement is the milestone to watch