DFAs: A Digital Right with an Obligor, Not a Cryptocurrency

DFAs, or digital financial assets, are property rights that are issued, recorded and transferred as entries in an information system rather than in a depository. The key element of the definition is that a DFA always has an obligor: an issuer that has taken on an obligation to pay money, deliver securities, or grant rights to participate in the capital of a non-public joint-stock company. This is what separates a DFA from a digital currency, which has no obligor. The legal framework is Federal Law No. 259-FZ of 31 July 2020, which took effect in 2021, and Article 141.1 of the Civil Code, which introduces the concept of a digital right itself.

What exactly the law calls a DFA

The law lists the types of rights that can be "packaged" into a DFA: monetary claims, the ability to exercise rights under issue-grade securities, rights to participate in the capital of a non-public joint-stock company, and the right to demand delivery of issue-grade securities. If an issue contains anything else, such as the right to receive goods or services, it is no longer a DFA but a utility digital right. Hybrid structures also exist, in which a monetary claim sits alongside a right to delivery.

The defining feature here is technical, not economic. In substance, DFAs are not a new asset class: a monetary claim with a maturity and an interest rate is economically close to short-term debt. What is new is the method of record-keeping. The right exists as an entry in an information system, and the entry that is recognised as valid is the one made under that system's rules.

Who keeps the records and who arranges the trades

Only an information system operator included in the Bank of Russia's register is entitled to issue and record DFAs. Trades between holders are arranged by a DFA exchange operator, which must also be on the regulator's register; this can be an exchange, a credit institution or a legal entity set up specifically for the purpose. The issue decision is published in the information system itself, where the volume, maturity, redemption procedure and obligor are recorded.

This leads to a less obvious consequence. There is no central depository keeping records across all platforms, so moving an asset from one system to another is restricted. What you buy from a particular operator generally stays there until redemption.

How DFAs differ from shares and bonds

A DFA issue does not require a registered prospectus or the procedures mandatory for issue-grade securities, which makes it faster and cheaper. The price of this speed is infrastructure: DFAs have no organised secondary market in the usual sense, no brokerage custody and no exchange data from which a price history can be built. By comparison, securities on the equity market and in the bonds section have a trading history, and upcoming payouts on shares are known in advance and collected in the calendar:

There is no comparable public feed for DFAs.

The closest economic benchmark is short-term debt. If you assess a DFA as a monetary claim, it makes sense to compare its terms with the yields of OFZ federal loan bonds of similar maturity: this provides a reference point that shows exactly what risk the premium on offer is compensating for.

What is inside actual issues

In practice, issues have centred on monetary claims: short-term corporate debt, and claims arising from factoring and receivables. A separate branch consists of DFAs linked to the price of precious metals or to square metres in a building under construction; economically, these are claims calculated by formula, not ownership of the metal or the square metre itself. Since 2024 the law has allowed DFAs to be used in settlements under foreign trade contracts, which is a separate story with no direct bearing on private investors.

What it looks like for a buyer

The procedure runs roughly as follows. Step 1: register in the operator's information system and complete identification. Step 2: fund the account and submit an order in the primary placement. Step 3: the DFA entry is credited to you. Step 4: redemption at maturity, when the obligor transfers the money. An exit before maturity is possible only if the exchange operator supports trading in that issue and a buyer can be found.

Not all issues are available to non-qualified investors, and purchases of some of them are capped by an annual limit set by a Bank of Russia regulation. Check the specific limit amount and the list of available issues with the operator: these values change and are not tracked in the site's data.

Taxes and tax breaks

Income from DFAs is subject to personal income tax. The Tax Code sets out separate rules for DFA transactions, including tax-agent obligations for the information system operator or the exchange operator. What matters more in practice is that DFAs are generally not classed as traded on an organised market, so the long-term holding deduction and the benefits of an individual investment account do not apply to them. This needs to be checked for each specific issue rather than assumed from the general rule.

Where to find data

The site maintains data on exchange-traded instruments: shares, bonds, funds, financial statements and corporate events. DFA issues are not in this database: they do not trade on an exchange and are not disclosed in a comparable format, so we show neither prices nor multiples for them. For the terms used in this article — obligor, digital right, qualified investor — see the glossary, and regulatory changes are covered in the news feed.