India and the United Arab Emirates will jointly run pilot programs for a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, according to an announcement on Wednesday.
The Reserve Bank of India and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Abu Dhabi to explore the possibility of interoperability between the two countries’ CBDCs.
The announcement said the banks will also “jointly conduct a proof of concept (PoC) and one or more pilots of a bilateral CBDC bridge to facilitate CBDC commercial transactions and remittances.” cross the border”.
India has been testing a retail CBDC in 15 cities reaching more than 50,000 customers, and 10,000 merchants. It hopes to launch a digital currency by the end of the year.