CBDC’s one million users target by end of June

09/06/2023

Table of Contents

CBDC’s one million users target by end of June

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has made a target of one million users of the central bank-backed digital currency (CBDC) by June-end, deputy governor T Rabi Shankar.

Deputy Governor of RBI T Rabi Shankar stated that the RBI has not made any decision on when to go live with CBDC. RBI has already live beyond the present pilot project and pointed to the “gradual and calibrated” change and these changes aims on internalizing learnings as the usage grows.

The RBI emerged a digital rupee for the wholesale segment and after it the first pilot for retail digital rupee has been launched on December 1.

Cities where pilot lunched:

The pilot had been launched in four cities named Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, and Bhubaneswar with customers and merchants in a closed user group.

Later It was availed to other cities like Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Gangtok, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Lucknow, Patna, and Shimla.

Banks in Pilot project:

Initially only the State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, YES Bank, and IDFC First Bank had been nominated as part of the CBDC’s pilot project.

But later on other banks like Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank are also granted permission to join the project.

RBI’s head office is discussing a plan to make the CBDC QR codes interoperable with Unified Payment Interface (UPI).

Benefits and facilities:

UPI helps banking transactions or digital transactions to make payments through debit or credit cards, internet banking or mobile wallets.

UPI has earned immense popularity in India, with QR code scans at merchants or between peers being the most used feature.

CBDC can also plays a beneficiary role that can depicts the digital currency and keep it in their wallet on mobile. The difference between payment app and CBDC is if you pay at a shop or to another individual via payment app it goes from one wallet to another.

On above transaction system there is no routing or intermediation of the bank. But in the case of UPI, money moves between two private entities, individuals or businesses and it is the same to physical cash in the case of CBDC.