RBI To Start Pilot of Retail Digital Rupee on December 1

Users will be able to transact with e-rupee through a digital wallet offered by the participating banks and stored on mobile phones or devices, the central bank said.

Swati Bhat

Users will be able to transact with e-rupee through a digital wallet offered by the participating banks and stored on mobile phones or devices, the central bank said.

rbi to start pilot of retail digital rupee on december 1

The Reserve Bank of India seal is pictured on a gate outside the RBI headquarters in Mumbai, India, February 2, 2016. Photo: Reuters/Danish Siddiqui

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India's first pilot for retail e-rupee, its version of the central bank digital currency, will be launched on December 1, it said in a statement on Tuesday, November 29.

Users will be able to transact with e-rupee through a digital wallet offered by the participating banks and stored on mobile phones or devices, it said.

The e-rupee would not earn any interest and can be converted to other forms of money like bank deposits as and when needed.

"The pilot will test the robustness of the entire process of digital rupee creation, distribution and retail usage in real time," the RBI said.

"It would be issued in the same denominations that paper currency and coins are currently issued," the statement added. "It would be distributed through intermediaries such as banks," it said.

The pilot would be launched in two phases, with State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank participating in phase 1 across four cities in the country. Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank will also join the pilot at a later stage across more cities.

"The scope of pilot may be expanded gradually to include more banks, users and locations as needed," the RBI said.

The RBI has been running a pilot of the wholesale e-rupee since November 1, with nine banks transacting in government securities using the e-rupee.

RBI would later test other features and applications of the e-rupee, based on the learnings from this pilot.

(Reuters)

This article went live on November twenty-ninth, two thousand twenty two, at twenty-six minutes past four in the afternoon.

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