E-rupee News

Retail CBDC transactions are averaging close to 18,000 a day, way short of the RBI's one million-a-day target by 2023 end. The features include allowing digital rupee transactions when a customer is offline and linking the e-rupee to India's popular Unified Payments Interface (UPI), three of the people quoted above said.

The CBDC is expected to make the inter-bank market more efficient and settlements in e-rupee can reduce transaction costs by pre-empting the need for settlement guarantee infrastructure or for collateral to mitigate settlement risk.

Crypto currencies are equivalent to gambling: RBI Governor. Those supporting it call it an asset or a financial product, but there is no underlying value in it, he added. To counter the growth of cryptocurrencies, the central bank recently launched in pilot mode, its own e-rupee or central bank digital currency (CBDC).

RBI rolled out the first pilot in the Digital Rupee, or e-rupee, in the wholesale segment for government securities on November 1. The RBI said that it will follow up on the wholesale e-rupee pilot with a similar trial on the retail side this month itself. The RBI has termed the launch of the central bank digital currency (CBDC) as a landmark moment in the history of currencies in the country.

In a statement, the central bank said that it will "soon commence pilot launches of Digital Rupee (ea,) for specific use cases. Accordingly, the first pilot in the Digital Rupee - Wholesale segment (ea,-W) shall commence on November 1, 2022".

The Reserve Bank will soon commence pilot launches of e₹ for specific use cases. As the extent and scope of such pilot launches expand, RBI will continue to communicate about the specific features and benefits of e₹, from time to time