Marching Towards Future of Money

In the past few years, the Indian economy has gone through historic metamorphosis thanks to United Payments Interface (UPI) and demonetisation.

- PAROMITA GUPTA

The latest to take it ahead is digital rupee. In its voyage towards a cash-free economy, the RBI introduced Central Bank Digital Currency or the retail digital rupee on a pilot basis from December 1, 2022. A month prior to that it launched the pilot project for the wholesale segment to settle secondary market transactions in government securities.

The central bank defines CBDC as a legal tender in a digital form issued by it. It is the same as a sovereign currency and is exchangeable at 1:1 par with fiat currency.

IMPLEMENTATION

There are two types of digital rupee: token-based and account-based. While the token-based digital rupee is mainly for retail use and will be a bearer instrument like a banknote, the account based will be for wholesale and merchant purposes and will require maintenance of balance and transaction records. To get token-based rupee, individuals will need to verify their identity, while in account-based, banks will verify the account holder's identity.

In common man's words, retail CBDC is targeted towards a person to person (P2P) and person to merchant (P2M) segment, while wholesale CBDC is targeted towards a more efficient interbank market (merchant to merchant).

The retail digital rupee,targeted towards all private sectors, non-financial consumers and businesses, has four participating banks, namely State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank. While digital rupee targeted at wholesale has nine participating 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.