The Reserve Bank of India has announced that it plans to expand the CBDC pilot to include more banks and more locations this year.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced in its annual report that it will expand its ongoing pilot for the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to more regions and more banks. In addition, the bank aims to add more use cases and features to the digital currency.
RBI Includes More Locations in CBDC Implementation
The central bank said in its annual report that it introduced the CBDC gradually over the year, and pilots were launched for the digital rupee in the wholesale and retail segments on November 1, 2022 and December 1, 2022, respectively.
Prior to the pilots, the Reserve Bank of India had released a concept note on the project to raise awareness about CBDCs in general and the planned features of the digital currency in particular. The CBDC pilot project started with four banks, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank. Later, four more banks were involved in the project, namely Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank.
Five more banks are currently in the process of participating in the pilot, including Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Federal Bank, Axis Bank and IndusInd Bank.
Besides, piloting of CBDC was first launched in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar. But later, other places were added to the list such as Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Gangtok, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Locknow, Patna and Shimla.
