The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has begun testing a prototype wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) and will launch a pilot programme for a retail digital rupee with merchants and consumers in select locations “within a month”, the central bank says in a press release.
RBI vide Press Release dated October 7, 2022 had announced that the Reserve Bank will soon commence pilot launches of Digital Rupee (e₹) for specific use cases. Accordingly, the first pilot in the Digital Rupee – Wholesale segment (e₹-W) shall commence on November 1, 2022.
The use case for this pilot is settlement of secondary market transactions in government securities. Use of e₹-W is expected to make the inter-bank market more efficient. Settlement in central bank money would reduce transaction costs by pre-empting the need for settlement guarantee infrastructure or for collateral to mitigate settlement risk. Going forward, other wholesale transactions, and cross-border payments will be the focus of future pilots, based on the learnings from this pilot.
Nine banks, viz., State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank, IDFC First Bank and HSBC have been identified for participation in the pilot.
The first pilot in Digital Rupee – Retail segment (e₹-R) is planned for launch within a month in select locations in closed user groups comprising customers and merchants. The details regarding operationalisation of e₹-R pilot shall be communicated in due course.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
