Digital Financial Infrastructure in Russia Is Expanding Rapidly
Market demand for innovative financial solutions is rising across Russia. According to the Central Bank, individuals accessed nearly 89% of financial services online in 2025, while among businesses that figure reached 92%.
The Bank of Russia published its 2025 results, highlighting advances in technology and continued support for innovation in digitalization. Corporate banking clients received services online in 92% of cases last year, while the share among individuals reached 89%.
Tsifrovoy profil (Digital Profile), biometrics, open APIs, and Platforma kommercheskikh soglasiy (Commercial Consent Platform) are key building blocks of Russia’s national digital infrastructure.
Open APIs play a central role in this system. The Tsifrovoy profil handled 77.3 million requests, 198 financial institutions connected to the service, more than 6 million people registered their biometrics through banks, and 19 organizations participated in pilot open API projects.
Russia’s financial market is shifting toward a model where remote access becomes the primary channel for business operations. This is driving demand for platform-based solutions from the IT sector.
Automation of banking processes is significantly improving both service quality and security. Biometrics, in particular, expands the range of remote services, and starting in March 2026, it becomes a mandatory anti-fraud tool for microfinance organizations.
Russia continues to strengthen its national digital infrastructure, reducing reliance on foreign platforms. The country is now able to apply unified standards across the market, while its structured approach to identification, data exchange, and open interfaces aligns with global frameworks for secure and standardized data sharing through open banking APIs.
Time Is Money
The central bank notes that data exchange services play a critical role in the national digital infrastructure. Over time, they are expected to significantly reduce processing times for lending, insurance, and other financial operations, particularly through the Tsifrovoy profil, which enables access to user data from government systems with customer consent.
In 2025, the regulator launched three pilot projects using open APIs. These allow users to view products from multiple providers within a single interface, along with personalized offers. The rollout will expand gradually, starting with the largest market players, followed by microfinance organizations and other financial platforms. To address potential barriers, including legal ones, the role of the Platforma kommercheskikh soglasiy will be strengthened.
Looking ahead, Russia’s experience in delivering large-scale financial services with a high degree of remote access could attract countries that are also testing digital public infrastructure and open finance models.
Global Market Trends
A key turning point in Russia’s open banking and open finance development came in 2024, when the central bank formally announced a phased transition to open APIs and made their adoption mandatory. In 2025, it published a report on the financial market’s national digital infrastructure, effectively outlining a systemic upgrade of data exchange, identity management, and consent frameworks. Demand for the Unified Biometric System is now growing at an accelerating pace.
Open interfaces are becoming a global standard. India, for example, is scaling its Account Aggregator model, introduced in 2021 and described by authorities as a core component of national digital public infrastructure. As of 2025, 112 Indian financial institutions had enabled secure data exchange across more than 2.2 billion accounts.
Unified Digital Backbone
In the coming years, the competitiveness and export potential of Russian fintech will depend on the strength of a unified digital backbone connecting businesses, government systems, banks, and related organizations.
With the Tsifrovoy profil and related services, data exchange is expected to become faster and more secure. Over time, the market is likely to move away from fragmented digital tools and fully adopt a unified system of open APIs and consent platforms, while biometrics becomes a standard mechanism.
