RBI Meets Banks And Fintechs To Push For CBDC Adoption

In a bid to encourage consumer adoption of central bank digital currency (CBDC), representatives of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) met with a few bankers and fintech officials. 

The meeting was held between April 20 and 21 in Lonavala, Maharashtra. 

According to a report by Moneycontrol, the meeting was attended by PhonePe’s cofounder Rahul Chari, Cred’s Kunal Shah, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) managing director Dilip Asbe, along with representatives from ICICI Bank, Yes Bank, IDFC First Bank, Google Pay, and Amazon Pay.

“RBI wanted inputs from banks and fintechs on how to popularise CBDC. The regulator wants to understand what can be done to address the lack of interest from the public,” the report said, quoting a person aware of the matter.

The central bank has been bullish on increasing the adoption of the blockchain-enabled digital currency since its launch in December 2022. 

Fashioned like a digital “rupee”, the CBDC is defined as the legal tender issued by a central bank in a digital form. They were launched in a pilot phase a couple of years back for use in retail, wholesale and international payments.

This comes at a time when RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said that the apex bank has proposed enablement of a non-bank payment system operators to offer CBDC wallets. 

“CBDC pilots in the Retail and Wholesale segments are underway with more use-cases and more participating banks. Continuing with this approach, it is proposed to make CBDC-Retail accessible to a broader segment of users in a sustained manner, by enabling non-bank payment system operators to offer CBDC wallets,” Das said announcing the decisions taken by the bank during its 2024’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). 

The bank has fast tracked the rollout of the digital currency. 

In its monetary policy statement in February, it said that it will enable additional functionalities such as offline capability and programmability for CBDC retail payments. 

Back then, reports surfaced saying that the regulatory bank is holding weekly meetings with banks on CBDC adoption and usage. However, its adoption has been shaky. Shortly after debuting the digital currency, the total retail CBDC or retail digital rupee (e₹-R) in circulation stood at INR 2.73 Cr as on February 3, 2023, RBI said in response to an RTI query raised by Inc42.

The number, however, declined in a year’s time. In February 2024, RBI’s deputy governor T Rabi Sankar said that 2.2 Cr transactions have been processed since launch.