A Digital Ruble as an Object of Financial Law Regulation

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the study of the issues concerning legal regulation of the digital ruble circulation — a Russian national digital currency. It is noted that public relations arising in the process of the digital ruble circulation are included in the subject matter of several branches of law, mainly financial and civil law. At the same time, a binding nature of the digital ruble is important for civil law that affects the rights and obligations of participants of civil turnover, and for financial law because of a state law nature of the digital ruble. It is the state power command (expressed in forms of financial law rules) that gives the digital ruble the status of a legal means of payments. The paper emphasizes that, although the «form of money» is primarily an economic concept, it is important for law, since it reflects the essential differences between types of money, manifested, inter alia, in the peculiarities of legal regulation of the circulation of different monetary funds. Based on the comparison of the Russian national digital currency with other types of non-cash funds, it is concluded that the digital ruble is a third form of money. In addition, the digital ruble is compared with digital currencies and electronic money. It is established that the digital ruble platform can be considered as a product subsystem of the national payment system, an information system, as well as the space within which the emergence, change and termination of legal relations related to the circulation of the digital ruble occur. Attention is focused on the transformation of the legal position of the Bank of Russia in connection with the assignment of the functions of the operator of the digital ruble platform. In addition, the paper reveals the features of the legal status of other participants of legal relations arising in the process of circulation of the digital ruble — participants and users of the digital ruble platform.