Participation of different groups in the Central Bank Digital Currency Pilot

Since the Central Bank’s digital currency pilot has been kicked off in December, around one lakh users have been participating in it. To scale the user base of the digital rupee to one million users is the aim of India’s retail central bank digital currency. It has also prioritized solving the challenge of creating an offline version. This is stated by the two people familiar with the matter told the coin desk. RBI officials are aiming at 500000 users by July and privately aimed to double the amount that has been stated by RBI officials publicly in March.

Reserve Bank involvement to increase the Currency value

One person said as India’s population is the majority, hence it is easy to achieve one million users. In order to reach one million users in three months he added a tentative timeline. Both retail and wholesale CBDC pilots have been run by the Reserve Bank Of India (RBI). With more than 13 banks participating the retail CBDC pilot is active in at least 15 cities. On the 1st of December 2022, the Indias CBDC pilot has been begun. In four months it has seen more than 1,00,000 participation of customers. On Thursday, in a media conference, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das said that in a recent meeting of G20 held in Bengaluru, India’s digital rupee was a great interesting subject. 

He also said that the only thing he missed was the smell of new currency and an eminent person from the international financial sector went to the extent of complementing the design of our CBDC. To find the solution to some of the challenges around the world of a retail CBDC,RBI initiated Hackathon in 2023. It increased online transactions per second and provides a solution to offline transactions. 

Offline Transaction Feature of RBI

The above-stated fact was an impossible trinity and you can achieve two objectives not the third said another person. He also stated that some technological aspects will address this soon. As a way to improve financial inclusion in emerging economies such as India a digital currency system can facilitate offline transactions. By testing the use of wearables, cards including debit and credit, Bluetooth technology and smartphone RBI is hoping to conduct offline transactions. The risk of double spacing is another key concern RBI is looking to address.

RBI appeal to private companies       

On a closing date of March 24 more than 50 proposals have been submitted to the RBI. It is done to solve the problems of an offline transaction according to one person. To consider solutions to improve scalability RBI has also been interacting with private companies. A timeline for rolling out full-scale retail has not been announced by the RBI. Instead, it aimed this process to the end of the year. 

Disclaimer: Crypto products and NFTs are highly risky and unregulated. Any loss from such a transaction has no regulatory recourse. Cryptocurrency is subjected to market risk and cannot be considered legal tender. One should seek expert advice before investing in crypto or performing any form of activities with Cryptocurrency respectively.