- The Reserve Bank of India, the country's central bank, has revealed that it plans to speed up its central bank digital currency plans.
- The institution has brought on board a number of leading banks to help it reach this goal – including the State Bank of India and the Union Bank of India.
- “The RBI has asked State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India and Bank of Baroda to run the pilot internally,” said a spokesperson for the central bank.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has revealed that it plans to speed up its central bank digital currency (CBDC) plans.
The bank has confirmed that it will speed up the plans for its CBDC through a pilot, and has brought on board a number of leading banks to help it reach this goal.
The bank has the ultimate aim of improving fast money transfers so that customers have a better experience.
The banks involved as part of the pilot, including the State Bank of India and the Union Bank of India. are owned by the state.
It also intends to partner with a number of private sector businesses to help ensure that the arrangement is pushed through quickly.
This list includes FIS, which is based in the US. It is understood to have lots of expertise in the sector, including when it comes to virtual currency creation.
It includes working with programmable payments as well as interest-beating CBDCs.
“FIS has had various engagements with the RBI, and our connected ecosystem could be extended to the RBI to experiment with various CBDC options,” explained Julia Demidova, senior director at FIS.
Her company stands ready to work with “commercial banks, where they can test and tokenise central bank money in the form of digital regulated money”.
For the Reserve Bank of India, meanwhile, a spokesperson there shared more information about the public sector banks that will be working on the project.
“The RBI has asked State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India, and Bank of Baroda to run the pilot internally,” the spokesperson said.
It is expected that the product and spec will be launched at an as yet unknown time.
“There is a pilot on CBDCs. The RBI may come with the launch this year. When it will exactly roll out the product and specifications is to be seen,” the bank source said.
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