After you have tested the wholesale use of your central bank digital currency (CBDC), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is preparing to carry out the “digital rupee” retail pilot. The testing phase should start within a month.
According to the Economic Times of India, the Reserve Bank of India is in the final phase of preparing to launch the retail digital rupee pilot project. Participants include State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, ICICI Bank, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank. Apparently, at some point, the pilot is going to include all the commercial banks in the country.
Each bank participating in the experiment will test the CBDC between 10,000 and 50,000 users. To integrate the new payment option, the banks will collaborate with the PayNearby and Bankit platforms. The infrastructure of the CBDC will be in the hands of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). As the anonymous source specified to the Indian journalists:
“The digital rupee will be stored in a wallet app, and the funds will be available based on what the customer requests, just like cash is requested at an ATM. Banks will launch it only in some cities.”
Both customers and merchants will need to download dedicated CBDC wallets, although the RBI plans to fully integrate it with existing digital banking services later on. The digital rupee is reportedly intended to be a supplement to the current payment system and not a replacement for it.
On November 1, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched a pilot project for the wholesale segment of the digital rupee. Its main use case has been the settlement of transactions in the secondary market of public securities. However, as of press time, there is no information on the success of the pilot test for the wholesale side.
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