Digital Rupee Has Amassed 50 Lakh Users in Retail Trial, Set for More Programmability: RBI

The trial of the country’s digital rupee or e-rupee is progressing rapidly. 50 lakh users have joined it. The trial of digital rupee is being done in collaboration with 16 banks. This Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) was launched in December 2022. CBDC is also being trialled in some other countries.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said that about 50 lakh users have joined the retail trial of e-rupee. He said that RBI will not rush to integrate it into the financial system. Das said that the programmability feature of e-rupee will be important for integrating it into the financial system. This will also help farmers get loans easily. Das said, “Farmers who do farming by taking land on rent have difficulty in taking loans for the material used in farming because they do not have ownership of the land to deposit with the banks. Programming the use of e-rupee will make it easier for farmers to get loans related to farming. This will not require the land documents of the farmer to determine his identity.”

Earlier this month, a Reuters report Report It was reported that UPI apps like Google Pay and PhonePe are also planning to join the trial of digital rupee under the supervision of RBI. Digital rupee (e-rupee) will also be accepted in Dubai. Recently, Dubai’s crypto exchange ByBit had announced the integration of e-Rupee for its peer-to-peer (P2P) transaction service. ByBit had said that it had received requests from Indian merchants for support for e-Rupee. In P2P payments, the seller deposits the payment in the form of cryptocurrency in the exchange’s wallet. After this, the seller decides a sale price of the asset. If the buyer accepts that price, the deal is done on the exchange. After this, the buyer sends the payment directly to the seller’s bank account. In this way the P2P transaction is completed.

With this digital currency issued by RBI, merchants who trade in rupees are assured of secure processing of digital transactions. ByBit’s P2P transactions will allow merchants to accept payments in rupees. This will reduce the risk of cyber criminals targeting their bank accounts.