Digital Rupee has 50000 Users and 5000 Merchants Reveals the RBI

Digital Rupee has 50000 Users and 5000 Merchants Reveals the RBI

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has revealed that 50,000 users and 5,000 merchants are now using its central bank digital currency (CBDC). Digital rupee transactions are currently processed by eight banks, and five more are ready to join the pilot soon, revealed RBI Deputy Governor T. Rabi Sankar.

The Digital Rupee Achieves New Milestone

The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) Deputy Governor T. Rabi Sankar said on Wednesday that the central bank’s digital currency pilot has reached a milestone.

The RBI Deputy Governor revealed that India’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) now has 50,000 users and 5,000 merchants. The retail digital rupee pilot was launched in five Indian cities on December 1 last year, but the central bank has plans to gradually expand into nine more cities with the addition of five more banks in the pilot phase soon. About 770,000 digital rupee transactions have been processed by the eight banks as of today.

The central banker explained that the Reserve Bank of India intends to move forward cautiously with the digital rupee initiative to prevent taking actions without a full understanding of their potential impact.

"We have our targets in terms of users and terms of merchants. We will go slowly," he said, adding:

"We want the process to happen, but we want it to happen gradually and slowly. We are in no hurry to make something happen so quickly."

Reliance Retail, the largest retailer in the country, announced last week that it would accept payments in digital rupees shortly. The retail chain has partnered with ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and fintech Innoviti Technologies to support the central bank’s digital currency in its store chain Freshpik across the country.

The Atlantic Council’s CBDC tracker, reveals that 114 countries, representing over 95% of global GDP, are currently exploring a central bank digital currency.

The RBI is Still Uncertain About Cryptocurrencies

Meanwhile, the central bank has continued to recommend a complete ban on cryptocurrencies in India, including bitcoin and ether. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das has warned that cryptocurrencies are a risk to the country’s financial system and will cause the next financial crisis if they are not banned.

The RBI governor said last month that "cryptocurrency does not have any underlying value," warning that "it will undermine the authority of the RBI and lead to the dollarization of the economy." 

What is your take on the progress of the digital rupee pilot? Please post your comments.