RBI: Government Expands e-Rupee Distribution to Boost Retail Usage
In order to make the e-rupee easier for regular people to use, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Friday that it would work with non-bank payment system owners, such as third-party payment app providers.
The RBI tested its distributed-ledger-based central bank digital currency (CBDC) in 2023, but only let banks sell the tokens, which kept the number of transactions low.
They now want non-bank payment system operators, such as third-party payment app providers like PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm, to be able to offer the e-rupee through CBDC accounts.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies that this would improve users’ access and options while also testing how well the CBDC platform can handle transactions through multiple channels.
The central bank also said that the system would be changed as needed to make this possible.
A person who knows about the test said that the RBI made the change to help increase the number of transactions for the retail CBDC.
The source also said that the process is still in its early stages and that third-party apps will need to get permission from the RBI to offer CBDC wallets.
It was against his rules to talk to the media, so the person didn’t want to be named. An email sent to the RBI asking for reaction did not get a response right away.
In a news conference after the policy meeting, RBI Deputy Governor T. Rabi Sankar said that 4.6 million retail users and 400,000 merchants are using the e-rupee right now.
To increase the number of transactions using the e-rupee, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) added new features and made it easier for more people to use them. For example, it was linked to the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), which is the country’s most famous real-time payments system, and it was made programmable, which lets specific groups of people, like farmers, receive cash.
Sankar said that these other options for use helped increase sales.
Reuters reported in January that Indian banks paid some employee perks through the e-rupee in December. This helped the RBI reach its goal of one million daily transactions by the end of 2023.