Digital Rupee: RBI announces launch of first pilot for retail on December 1

Retail Digital Rupee: India's first Retail Digital Rupee pilot project will be launched by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on December 1, 2022. The pilot would cover select locations in a closed user group (CUG) comprising participating customers and merchants. Eight banks have been identified for phase-wise participation in this pilot.  

The Digital Rupee would be in the form of a digital token that represents legal tender. It would be issued in the same denominations that paper currency and coins are currently issued. 

"It would be distributed through intermediaries, i.e. banks. Users will be able to transact with Digital Rupee through a digital wallet offered by the participating banks and stored on mobile phones / devices. Transactions can be both Person to Person (P2P) and Person to Merchant (P2M). Payments to merchants can be made using QR codes displayed at merchant locations," the central bank said in a release.

The Digital Rupee would offer features of physical cash like trust, safety and settlement finality. As in the case of cash, it will not earn any interest and can be converted to other forms of money, like deposits with banks.

There will be four banks in the first phase i.e. State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank in four cities across the country. 

Other four more banks - Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank - will join this pilot subsequently. 

Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar are the four cities where the pilot project will be launched. 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.