RBI Making Efforts to Launch eRupee Widely, Trial in Advance Phase

The digital payments segment has grown rapidly in the last few years. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) eRupee is being trialled in India. For this, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has added many banks. However, RBI says that it will not be in any hurry regarding this.

The trial of e-Rupee was started about two years ago. This trial is now in advanced phase. RBI Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar told Bloomberg that there may be some delay in launching India’s digital currency for general use. He said, “We will not be in any hurry with this. It will be launched after there is some clarity regarding its outcome or impact. No specific timeline has been kept for this.” RBI is looking at it as a medium to internationalize the Indian currency.

In some other countries, measures are also being taken to include CBDC in the financial system. Its objective is to reduce dependence on the US dollar for international payments. Rabi Sankar said that work is being done on the payment arrangements related to CBDC with Sri Lanka and United Arab Emirates (UAE). Recently, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had said that about 50 lakh users have participated in the retail trial of e-Rupee. Das had said that the programmability feature of e-rupee would be important to integrate it into the financial system. With this, farmers will also be able to get loans easily. A few months ago, Dubai-based crypto exchange ByBit had announced the integration of e-Rupee into its peer-to-peer (P2P) transaction service. Some UPI apps are also planning to join the RBI-monitored digital rupee trial.

He had said, “Farmers who do farming by taking land on rent find it difficult to take loan for the material used in farming because they do not have ownership rights of the land to deposit with the banks. Uses of e-Rupee “By programming it, it will be easier for the farmers to take loans related to agriculture. With this, the banks will not need the documents of the farmer to establish his identity.”