Alexander Murychev discussed the prospects for digital financial assets at St. Petersburg International Legal Forum

St. Petersburg, May 19, 2025 – As part of the XIII St. Petersburg International Legal Forum (SPILF), Alexander Murychev, Chairman of the FBA EAC Board, moderated the session “Digital Financial Assets – a Flexible and Stable Tool. Who Needs Digital Assets More Nowadays?”. The event is being held at the Expoforum congress and exhibition center.

Source: Photobank of Roscongress

The DFA market: dynamics and regulation

In his speech, Alexander Murychev noted that the market of digital financial assets (DFAs) is demonstrating rapid growth: its volume has reached RUB 700 billion with more than 1,400 issues. There are already 15 registered operators of the information systems issuing DFAs in Russia.

Key trends:

·        Increase in the number of issuers and private investors.

·        Emergence of new types of products, including debt, index and hybrid DFAs.

·        Legislative initiatives: The Russian Ministry of Finance proposed to include income and expenses on debt DFAs in the tax base (similar to interest on loans and bonds).

·        A draft law on digital certificates – non-equity securities certifying digital rights – was submitted to the State Duma.

Business survey results

Alexander Murychev presented preliminary data from the survey of Russian business representatives on all major technologies in the financial sector, including DFA: 33% of respondents currently say that they are actively studying the topic of digitizing assets (43% in the 2021 survey), 41% of respondents are somewhat familiar with it (34% in the 2021 survey), 18% say that they are mostly familiar with the topic (6% in the 2021 survey) and only 5% are completely unfamiliar with it (17% in the 2021 survey).

The most promising areas for DFA:

·        Payment industry (96%).

·        Financial market (87%).

·        Foreign trade activities (62%).

Key benefits:

·        Management of accounts receivable (64%).

·        Foreign trade settlements (51%).

·        Use of smart contracts (41%).

Conclusions and prospects

Alexander Murychev emphasized that the DFA market is going through a stage of practical rethinking, especially in the context of changes in foreign trade settlements. He expressed confidence that such discussions contribute to improving the regulation and making financial instruments more accessible to businesses.

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About the Forum:

The XIII St. Petersburg International Legal Forum is the largest platform for dialogue between representatives of the legal, business, political and law enforcement communities on the issues of law in the interests of citizens and business, the improvement of law enforcement practice, promotion of legislative initiatives in order to develop legal culture and regulation of social and economic sphere in modern conditions.

The Forum is organized by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation and the Roscongress Foundation in accordance with Presidential Decree No. 55 of February 15, 2022.