RBI plans digital currency pilots soon

CBDC will help cut the cost of currency management while expediting real-time payments: Sankar

The Reserve Bank of India is likely to soon kick off pilot projects to assess the viability of using digital currency to make wholesale and retail payments to help calibrate its strategy for introducing a full-scale central bank digital currency (CBDC). “Every idea has to wait for its time, perhaps the time for a CBDC is here,” RBI Deputy Governor T. Rabi Sankar said on Thursday. “Like other central banks, we have also been exploring the pros and cons of this since quite some time,” he added. India is already a leader in digital payments, but cash remains dominant for small-value transactions, he said, stressing that an official digital currency would reduce the cost of currency management while enabling real-time payments without any inter-bank settlement.