Launching the digital rupee on a pilot basis is said to be the first step towards India’s digital currency.
Pratik Gauri, co-founder and CEO of 5ire, said, “I appreciate the government’s commitment to financial inclusion and am delighted to see the introduction of digital currency from the central bank (CDBC) by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
As the founder of a layer-1 blockchain unicorn that hopes to bridge the gap between the physical and digital world, I applaud this first step towards India’s digital currency, he said. The RBI on Monday rolled out the digital rupee, CBDC, as part of its first pilot test program to review and improve the currency’s functionality
The CBDC rollout has been one of the most sought-after developments since it was announced in the FY23 Union budget. The pilot announcement involves nine banks, including SBI, Bank of Baroda, HDFC Bank, Yes Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and ICICI Bank, which settle trades in the secondary market for government securities, thereby reducing settlement risk and transaction costs.
Jaya Vaidhyanathan, CEO of BCT Digital, says: “RBI’s commencement of the pilot of the digital rupee marks appreciable progress in the journey towards digital payments. While experts were wondering when India – the world’s fifth-largest economy – would start in this regard, the RBI has not disappointed.
The initiative has started in the low volume, a high-value wholesale (interbank) segment from where learnings would be used to roll out reliable, built-to-scale retail payments, she added.
A successful pilot project and, by extension, a full deployment of the digital rupee should increase the scope of the amount and financial needs of a broader category of users while ensuring transparency and low operational cost, and in this respect, it is encouraging to witness RBI’s support for innovation in creating a world-class, future-ready digital ecosystem