RBI’s Retail Pilot of the Digital Rupee Goes Live in India’s 4 Metro Cities

New Delhi (India), April 8: As expected, the pilot for the retail digital rupee was launched in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar on December 1, 2022. The retail digital rupee project started in a closed user group with the participation of four leading lenders, including State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank. Later, it will be extended to Ahmedabad, Gangtok, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Lucknow, Patna and Shimla. The scope of the pilot may be expanded gradually to include more banks, users and locations as needed.

What is the Digital Rupee? According to the concept note, the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is the Reserve Bank of India’s official form of currency. The regulator stated that the RBI’s CBDC, also known as the Digital Rupee or e-Rupee, is interchangeable one-to-one at par with the fiat currency and is the same as a sovereign currency.

As per the central bank digital currency (CBDC) tracker, almost 105 countries representing 95% of the world GDP have taken steps to inculcate digital currency in their ecosystem.50 countries are at the advanced phase of exploration to launch the digital currency, while 10 countries have fully launched the digital currency.

The founder of Shree Consultants Kishore Subramanian clarifies that the difference between digital currency and UPI is that digital currency is like physical currency issued by the central bank and is the RBI’s liability whereas UPI is a means of payment. Any transaction through UPI is the respective bank’s liability.