Tag: erupee

eRupee Recorded Rs. 5.7 Crore in Transactions in First Four Months of Retail Trials, Says RBI: Report

eRupee, the Indian central bank digital currency (CBDC), was reportedly used to process transactions worth Rs. 5.70 crore in the first four months since it entered the retail trials phase. The information was disclosed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as it responded to an RTI query initiated by Moneycontrol. The RBI launched eRupee retail trials in select locations across the country on December 1, 2022.

“As per the data published in the balance sheet of the Reserve Bank of India as on March 31, 2023, the E-Rupee issued for CBDC (Retail) at Rs 5.70 crore,” the central bank reportedly said responding to Moneycontrol’s RTI query last month.

CBDCs are an electronic, blockchain-based form of a sovereign currency. The use of CBDCs instead of cash would not only reduce reliance on paper notes, but also ensure that all transactions are recorded on a distributed ledger, safeguarding the information against tampering.

A total of thirteen banks, including Canara Bank and the State Bank of India (SBI), are assisting the RBI in conducting these trials. These banks also offered benefits and rewards to people experimenting with the eRupee, which helped the RBI meet its target of one million daily transactions by end of 2023.

In the months to come, the RBI is planning to load more features onto the eRupee, now that several Indian banks are letting people experiment with payments through it.

Last week, Shaktikanta Das, the governor of RBI, told the media that the eRupee CBDC is to be loaded with features supporting offline payments for rural regions and programmability feature for corporate uses.

Industry stakeholders from India’s Web3 sector weighed in on the situation on social networking platform. Nischal Shetty, the CEO of WazirX and the Co-Founder of recently launched crypto futures exchange Pi42, shared excitement on RBI’s CBDC plans in his post on X Friday.

“This is a great move to further grow the CBDC adoption and bring new use cases to the end users,” Shetty said. “If there’s a way to bridge this CBDC over to decentralized blockchains then we might see INR integrating into DeFi. This will help INR get stronger which would be a net positive for India,” he added. Members of Web3 community also took to X to comment on India’s CBDC plans.

Last year in July, a survey conducted by the CFA Institute (Chartered Financial Analyst) said that the Asia-Pacific region showed greater receptivity to CBDCs — especially among younger respondents.

“Financial inclusion and financial stability constitute two of the key motivations driving interest in CBDCs across the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, the rapid rise and sudden fall of private cryptocurrencies have sparked interest in CBDCs,” the report had noted.

Along with India, other nations that are working around their respective CBDCs include the UK, China, Japan, and South Korea.

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



Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

India’s eRupee CBDC to Get Offline Payments Feature, Programmability Tweaks: RBI Governor

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is looking to adopt offline strategies to ensure that the eRupee CBDC enters the financial system of rural and remote parts of India. RBI governor Shaktikanta Das reportedly stated that the central bank plans to experiment with offline solutions to drive the adoption of CBDC in those parts of India that are not as well connected to the Internet as developed cities. These plans have reportedly been under discussions since March last year. Das disclosed these details on Thursday, concluding the RBI-hosted three-day Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting.

Offline solutions for CBDC adoption will soon enter the test phase for hilly and rural regions of the country. These programmability-based solutions will include both, proximity and non-proximity ones, Das said, without disclosing any further details. “It is proposed to introduce an offline functionality in CBDC-R (Retail) for enabling transactions in areas with poor or limited internet connectivity,” The RBI governor stated on Thursday.

The RBI plans to let merchants and corporates modify the programmability of the CBDC in order to expand its use cases. These could include the inclusion of travel expenditures for company employees.

“Programmability will permit users like government agencies to ensure payments are made for defined benefits. Similarly, corporates will be able to programme specified expenditures like business travel for their employees,” Das added.

A central bank digital currency or CBDC, is the virtual representation of any fiat currency on the blockchain networks. Shifting transactions from cash notes to CBDC would reduce the bank’s dependency on paper-based notes and also maintain permanent financial records that could not be altered.

India’s digital rupee CBDC was launched by the RBI on a pilot basis on December 1, 2022. In the Union Budget 2022-23, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced plans to roll out the CBDC for trial purposes.

Gradually, several Indian banks including the State Bank of India (SBI) and the Canara Bank, joined the CBDC pilot to test its Person-to-Person (P2P) and Person-to-Merchant (P2M) transactions. Currently, the eRupee is in its advanced trial stages with multiple large state-owned and private lenders participating in these trials alongside select small, medium, and big level merchants.

In April last year, Reliance General Insurance began accepting the eRupee CBDC for premium payments. Likewise, Reliance Retail had also announced last year that it was starting to accept the CBDC across its stores in Mumbai as payments.

The Reserve Bank of India reportedly managed to meet its target of one million daily transactions via CBDC by the end of 2023. Indian banks rewarded some employee benefits through the digital rupee in December to help the RBI meet its target.

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 Assigns CBDC Expansion Targets to Banks, Aims for 1 Million Daily Transactions by December: Report

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is aiming to clock one million transactions in India’s under-trial CBDC, the eRupee, daily by December. In order to accelerate number of CBDC transactions, the RBI is reportedly giving targets to banks to facilitate a minimum number of transactions in the form of the eRupee. India has been working on its CBDC initiative for at least two years now. Last year, the country’s first ever national digital currency was launched into its pilot mode for trials.

Indian banks have reportedly maintained the opinion that the eRupee CBDC could have only limited use cases because online payments are already facilitated digitally by the widely used UPI system in the country. Under RBI’s directions, however, banks will now do their bit to ensure that select users get to process eRupee tractions for daily purchases, a report by the Mint claimed on Monday.

At present, multiple large state-owned and private lenders, including State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Yes Bank, are participating with the RBI in the ongoing CBDC trials.

Once the banks meet their assigned targets, they would be liable for rewards approved by the government.

Gadgets 360 has reached out to the RBI for details on the development.

CBDCs function like cryptocurrencies, but they are regularised and issued by the central banks. Digital currencies not only smoothen online payment systems, but also reduces the dependency on cash notes.

As part of its ongoing trials, the eRupee CBDC is being loaded with the capability to interact with existing UPI QR codes in India. This would allow its test users to process payments via this digital currency by simply scanning already in-use QR codes.

CBDC transactions were processed by 1.3 million customers and 0.3 million merchants as of June 2023, RBI deputy governor T Rabi Sankar had said earlier this month.

Nearly two dozen central banks across emerging and advanced economies are expected to have digital currencies in circulation by the end of the decade, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) had found in a survey earlier this year.

Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 alongside the Galaxy Tab S9 series and Galaxy Watch 6 series at its first Galaxy Unpacked event in South Korea. We discuss the company’s new devices and more on the latest episode of 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

RBI to Deploy eRupee CBDC Payments via UPI QR Codes Soon: All Details

India may take the next big leap in its eRupee central bank digital currency (CBDC) venture any day now. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) could soon facilitate CBDC payments via existing UPI QR codes. The deployment of this interoperability element to the eRupee CBDC has been in the pipeline for a while now. Since UPI scanners are already widely used around the country for instant online payments, their acceptance of CBDC payments would bring an ease to using India’s national digital currency.

During a G20 event last week, representatives from the RBI had said that the ability to facilitate CBDC payments via UPI QR codes will be deployed at the end of the month, Doordarshan had reported at the time.

As per the report, an announcement on CBDC payments via UPI is expected around the end of July and could arrive in the coming days. Once the service is live, retailers accepting India’s CBDC as a payment option, would just have to extend their existing QR codes to their customers and let them scan them for payments to go through.

At present, multiple large state-owned and private lenders, including State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Yes Bank, are participating with the RBI in the ongoing CBDC trials.

Select small, medium, and big level merchants are also helping the RBI test how smooth CBDC transactions could be in a real-life retail setting. Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s chain of retail stores are also accepting CBDC payments in Mumbai since February this year.

CBDCs function like cryptocurrencies, but they are regularised and issued by the central banks. Digital currencies not only smoothen online payment systems, but also reduce dependency on cash notes.

The pilot for the retail digital rupee was launched in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar on December 1, 2022.

Amid ongoing eRupee trials, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das recently said that CBDCs will bring a fundamental change in the currency system we are accustomed to today.

Das has reportedly predicted that CBDCs would become popular globally, just like UPI is popular in India.

Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 alongside the Galaxy Tab S9 series and Galaxy Watch 6 series at its first Galaxy Unpacked event in South Korea. We discuss the company’s new devices and more on the latest episode of 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

Existing UPI QR Codes Could Begin Processing Transactions in eRupee CBDC: RBI’s T Rabi Sankar

India is planning to introducing its own blockchain-based eRupee CBDC for commercial use. The country is mulling more ways to make this process simple for adoption. On Thursday, May 8, RBI Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar hinted that existing UPI QR codes could become interoperable with the Indian CBDC in the months to come. At this point, the RBI is considering if existing QR codes must act like a gateway for CBDC transactions. It, however, remains unclear by when would the RBI take a concrete decision on the subject.

Sankar was addressing a press conference on Thursday when he announced this update to the media.

“We are planning to make the UPI QR code interoperable [with the eRupee],” media reports quoted Sankar as saying.

Given that the UPI QR codes reportedly help over 300 million Indians facilitate online payments, their use for CBDC payments could aid more people adopt the payment means.

CBDC — central bank digital currency — is the virtual representation of a fiat currency on a blockchain network. Similar to cryptocurrency in functionality but controlled by central banks, CBDCs are capable of storing permanent transactional records on the blockchain, while also reducing the national dependency on cash notes.

India, at present, is on an advanced stage of trials for its eRupee CBDC.

Currently, eRupee worth over Rs. 130 crore are in circulation as part of the going trials. The detail was revealed by Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman earlier in March.

Over 50,000 testers, 5,000 selected merchants and multiple banks are involved in the trial runs of the eRupee CBDC, which is being accepted at select Reliance stores in Mumbai.

India and UAE have also joined forces in agreeing to take the trials of their respective CBDCs to a cross-country level. The central banks of both the nations will collectively be testing how their CBDCs operate from the other country.

By the end of June, India aims to onboard a million users to its CBDC ecosystem, Sankar reportedly said in today’s press conference.

As of now, the government has not disclosed any special date on which this digital currency would be rolled out to the masses for daily use.

Apple unveiled its first mixed reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro, at its annual developer conference, along with new Mac models and upcoming software updates. We discuss all the most important announcements made by the company at WWDC 2023 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

Exit mobile version