RBI to launch pilot of Digital Rupee tomorrow for transactions in government securities

Digital Rupee Launch Date: The Reserve Bank of India today said that the first pilot of the Digital Rupee (Wholesale segment) will be launched tomorrow for transactions in government securities. Digital Rupee is the Digital Currency launched by the Reserve Bank of India. The central bank said in a statement today that the use case for the pilot is the settlement of secondary market transactions in government securities. The RBI has identified nine banks to participate in the pilot and these banks are the State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank, IDFC First Bank and HSBC.

The RBI also said the first pilot of the Digital Rupee - Retail segment is planned for launch within a month in select locations in closed user groups comprising customers and merchants.

The government of India announced the launch of the Digital Rupee — a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) from FY 2022-23 onwards in the Union Budget placed in the Parliament on February 01, 2022. 

On the other hand, the Central Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank of India today reviewed the current economic situation and challenges being faced by the country due to global geopolitical crises. The 598th meeting of the central board was held under the chairmanship of Governor Shaktikanta Das, the RBI said in a statement.

"The Board in its meeting reviewed the current economic situation, global and domestic challenges including the overall impact of current global geopolitical crises," it said. The board also discussed the functioning of various sub-committees of the central board, the ombudsman scheme and activities of select central office departments

Directors of the Central Board -- Satish K Marathe, S Gurumurthy, Revathy Iyer, Sachin Chaturvedi, Venu Srinivasan, Pankaj Ramanbhai Patel and Ravindra H Dholakia -- attended the meeting. RBI Deputy Governors Mahesh Kumar Jain, Michael Debabrata Patra, Rajeshwar Rao, T Rabi Sankar, and Ajay Seth, Secretary, the Department of Economic Affairs also attended the meeting.

(With PTI inputs)