New Delhi: The Reserve Bank on Wednesday said five more banks will join the pilot on central bank digital currency or e-rupee for retail customers and the project will be extended to nine additional cities. The Reserve Bank, which began operating the central bank digital currency or e-Rupee for retail customers with eight banks in five cities in early December, asserted that it does not want to rush into it, but go slow and slow. favors stable adoption.
The retail CBDC is currently only available to 50,000 users, of whom 5,000 are merchants. The service is now being offered by eight banks in five cities on an invitation basis, Deputy Governor T Rabi Shankar told reporters at the customary post-policy presser on Wednesday. Shankar said that considering the glitch-free adoption so far, five more banks will soon be added to the platform, as well as the number of cities where the pilot service is currently available.
“Having said this and at the risk of being correct, I just want to reiterate that we want the process to happen. But we want the process to happen slowly and gradually. We are in no rush to do anything too quickly. Are.
“We have our goals in terms of users, in terms of merchants and everybody else. But we will take it slowly because we don’t want to do anything without really understanding what the potential impact and what that impact could be, said the deputy governor.
Regarding the volume of transactions, he said that it is increasing gradually and till now it has been around Rs 7.7 lakh. RBI to launch CBDC for wholesale and retail on November 1 and December 1, 2022 respectively. While wholesale CBDC use is limited to settlement of secondary market transactions in government securities, retail e-Rupee – is being used within a closed user group (CUG) consisting of participating customers and merchants.
Four banks are involved in the first phase – State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank and later four banks are Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank.
The CBDC is expected to make the inter-bank market more efficient and settlement in e-Rupee could reduce transaction costs for collateral by reducing the need for settlement guarantee infrastructure or to reduce settlement risk.