Development of a methodology for assessing the adoption of the digital ruble

Context and relevance. The digital ruble, a digital form of the Russian national currency that the Bank of Russia plans to issue in addition to existing forms of money, is a new phenomenon in the Russian economy; the attitudes of potential users towards it remain a little-understood phenomenon.
Objective. To translate into Russian and modifications of the acceptance of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) (Söilen, Benhayoun, 2021).
Hypothesis. The adapted methodology for assessing the acceptance of the digital ruble (DRA) demonstrates high structural, concurrent, and convergent validity, as well as reliability, and can be used to identify factors influencing Russians' willingness to adopt the digital ruble.
Methods and materials. The study was conducted by means of a socio-psychological survey. To measure the assessment of the adoption of the digital national currency, the Central Bank's Acceptance of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) methodology was adapted and validated (Söilen, Benhayoun, 2021). The study included a sample of 300 respondents (150 men, 150 women, average age – 37,3 years). A forward and backward translation of the questionnaire was carried out in order to achieve equivalence between the Russian and English versions, then using confirmatory factor analysis we evaluated the factor structure of the adapted methodology. The competitive and convergent validity of the methodology was also assessed.
Results. The good results of the confirmatory factor analysis indicate the reproducibility of the factor structure of the method in the Russian sample. The final version of the methodology includes 7 scales: "Expectations of effectiveness from use", "Expectations regarding the amount of effort expended", "Conditions for use", "Social influence", "Trust in the currency system", "Behavioral intents", and "Intended use". All scales have high reliability and consistency (Cronbach's a on all scales of the questionnaire range from 0,77 to 0,92). The competitive and convergent validity of this methodology was also evaluated, as a result of which we obtained confirmation of these types of validity in the developed methodology.
Conclusions. The technique developed by the authors is reliable and valid and can be used both for research and for applied purposes.