Report: RBI likely to launch digital rupee pilot for interbank transactions by October

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is likely to launch the pilot of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for transactions for interbank borrowing or call money market by this October, Central Bank Executive Director Ajay Kumar Choudhary said on Sunday.

In November 2022, the pilot of the wholesale CBDC, known as the Digital Rupee-Wholesale (e-W), was launched with the use case being limited to the settlement of secondary market transactions in government securities, according to PTI reports.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the introduction of CBDC in the Union Budget 2022-23 and necessary amendments to the relevant section of the RBI Act, 1934, were made with the passage of the Finance Bill 2022.

The RBI picked nine banks -- State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, YES Bank, IDFC First Bank, and HSBC for its pilot project for wholesale CBDC, PTI reported.

In addition, the central bank has already rolled out a pilot in the retail version of the CBDC (e-R) on December 1, 2022. 

The e-R is in the form of a digital token that represents legal tender.