Tag: digital currency

E-Rupee CBDC Said to Hit RBI Target of 1 Million Daily Transactions by End of 2023

Indian banks disbursed some employee benefits through the digital rupee in December, helping the Reserve Bank of India meet its target of one million daily transactions by end-2023, three sources directly familiar with the development said.

The central bank digital currency (CBDC), called the e-rupee, has been devised as a digital alternative to physical cash and has been built using distributed-ledger technology.

The RBI started its e-rupee pilot in December 2022 but transactions averaged only 25,000 a day by the end of October, even though its use case was significantly broadened by linking it to the popular United Payments Interface (UPI), a framework that facilitates peer-to-peer money transfer via mobile apps.

However, last month some large private and state-run lenders disbursed amounts related to employee benefit schemes directly to employees’ CBDC wallets, instead of their salary accounts, the first source familiar with the pilot said.

These lenders included HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, Canara Bank, and IDFC First Bank the second source said.

The RBI expects non-financial firms to follow suit as well, helping boost transactions further, the source added.

Even the user base has been steadily growing … “to about 4 million users currently, up from 3 million in December,” a third executive familiar with the pilot said.

The sources declined to be identified as they are not authorised to speak to the media. The RBI did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Globally, countries including China, France and Ghana are in the pilot stages of their CBDC projects. Others like Nigeria have rolled out their digital currency, but with limited success despite offering rewards like discounts on auto-rickshaw rides.

Indian banks too are offering incentives for e-rupee transactions, following a nudge from the RBI to boost volumes, Reuters had reported earlier.

“Compensating employees using the CBDC is a good step,” Sharat Chandra, co-founder of India Blockchain Forum said. Other avenues such as toll tax collections can also be included to further encourage adoption, he added.

© Thomson Reuters 2024

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

PayPal Launches US Dollar Stablecoin for Financial Payments, Transfers

Payments giant PayPal said on Monday it has launched a US dollar stablecoin, becoming the first major financial technology firm to embrace digital currencies for payments and transfers. 

While stablecoins — crypto tokens whose monetary value is pegged to a stable asset to protect from wild volatility — have been around for years now, they are yet to successfully make headway into the mainstream consumer payments ecosystem. 

PayPal’s announcement, which lifted its shares 2.5 percent in afternoon trading, reflects a show of confidence in the troubled industry that has over the last 12 months grappled with regulatory headwinds that were exacerbated by a string of high-profile collapses. 

Prior attempts by major mainstream companies to launch stablecoins have met fierce opposition from financial regulators and policymakers. Meta‘s, then Facebook, 2019 plans to launch a stablecoin, Libra, were foiled after regulators raised fears it could upset global financial stability.

A string of major economies, from Britain to the European Union, have since laid out rules to govern stablecoins. The EU’s policies will come into force in June 2024.

Last month, the US House Financial Services committee also advanced a bill to establish a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins, which will focus on rules for the registration and approval process for stablecoin issuers.

PayPal’s stablecoin, dubbed PayPal USD, is backed by US dollar deposits and short-term US Treasuries, and will be issued by Paxos Trust. It will gradually be available to PayPal customers in the United States. 

Argus Research Corp analyst Stephen Biggar said PayPal’s brand name makes the stablecoin launch significant but the company has been associated with crypto previously so it’s not a surprise. 

Visa also said in 2021 it will allow the use of cryptocurrency to settle transactions on its payment network.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

RBI’s CBDC Can Now Be Accepted at Reliance General Insurance Through Yes Bank

Reliance General Insurance on Wednesday said it has become a forerunner general insurance company in the country to accept the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Central Bank Digital Currency e-Rupee for premium payments.

The company has tied up with Yes Bank to facilitate the collection of premiums in the digital mode using the bank’s e-Rupee platform, a statement said.

Customers who have an active e-wallet with any bank can scan Reliance General Insurance’s e-Rupee QR code to make immediate payment, it said.

With this pioneering launch, the company is presenting its customers with an easy, safe, instant and green payment solution, and taking its promise of providing excellent customer experience to the next level.

e-Rupee is a digital token that is equivalent to a banknote i.e. legal tender, and is a sovereign currency backed by the RBI, it noted.

Being digital, e-Rupee removes all the issues of handling physical cash and offers the same anonymity as a banknote, it said.

Moreover, it said, since all e-Rupee transactions are done through an RBI-regulated entity, it reduces banknote-related risks like anti-money laundering, the counterfeit of currency etc.

Reliance General Insurance is enabling its customers to hedge such risks by providing e-Rupee as a form of digital currency transaction option thereby promoting safe financial transactions, it said. 

The pilot for the retail digital rupee was launched in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar on December 1, 2022. The retail digital rupee project started in a closed user group with the participation of four leading lenders, including State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank. Later, it will be extended to Ahmedabad, Gangtok, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Lucknow, Patna and Shimla. The scope of the pilot may be expanded gradually to include more banks, users and locations as needed.

Smartphone companies have launched many compelling devices over the first quarter of 2023. What are some of the best phones launched in 2023 you can buy today? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Central Bank Digital Currency Set to Transform the Way Business Is Done, RBI Governor Says

Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das said CBDC is going to be a major transformation of the way business is done — the way transactions are conducted and highlighted that RBI is among the very few central banks in the world which have taken this initiative. While addressing FIBAC on Wednesday, Governor Shaktikanta Das said, “Yesterday, we launched the trial of our digital currency, Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) project. It was indeed a landmark moment in the history of currency in our country. Going forward, it will be a landmark moment. It will be a landmark achievement so far as the functioning of the entire economy is concerned.”

FIBAC is an annual banking conference, organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA).

At the conference, Das said, “Will to try and launch the CBDC in a full-fledged manner in the near future,” he said. CBDC is a digital form of currency notes issued by a central bank.

Das announced that the retail part of the CBDC trial will be launched later this month and added, “We will announce the date separately, but I don’t want to give a target date by which time the CBDCs will be launched in our full-scale manner, because this is something where we have to proceed very carefully. This is the first time the world is doing it. We don’t want to be in a great hurry, we want to learn from the experience.”

Das also announced that end-to-end digitisation of Kisan Credit Card (KCC) loans will be launched on a nationwide basis during the calendar year 2023. “Based on the learnings and experience of the pilot project of end-to-end digitisation of KCC loans, our endeavour would be to launch it in a full-scale manner if everything goes alright, not only for the farmers’ loans, but also for the SME loans. We hope to launch it on a nationwide basis during the calendar year 2023,” he said.

RBI started the pilot project of end-to-end digitisation of Kisan Credit Card (KCC) loans in September 2022 in selected districts of Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu with Union Bank of India and Federal Bank, respectively, as partner banks and with active cooperation of the respective state governments.

“This pilot project on digitalisation of KCC lending is expected to play a pivotal role in facilitating credit flow to the unserved and underserved rural population by making the credit process faster and more efficient. When fully implemented, this has the potential to transform the rural credit delivery system of the country,” the Governor added.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Exit mobile version