RBI to meet banks on November 24 for CBDC pilot review

The RBI had in December 2022 started the retail pilot of its digital currency.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is set to meet banks on November 24 to review pilot testing of Central Bank Digital Currency, said Bank of Baroda's Executive Director Joydeep Dutta Roy.

"We have meeting with RBI tomorrow (November 24) on CBDC pilot review," Roy said on the sidelines of a banking summit organised by the industry body FICCI and the Indian Banks Association on November 23.

On the CBDC front, the state-owned BoB is looking to increase the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) users to 10 lakh over the next three to four months, Roy said.

At present, the bank has around 2.5 lakh CBDC users.

“We have around 2.5 lakh users and we are working to make 10 lakh users over next 3-4 months,” Roy said on the sidelines of an event organised by the industry body FICCI and the Indian Banks Association.

The RBI had in December 2022 started the retail pilot of its digital currency.

In September this year, RBI Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar said that around 15,000 transactions were taking place a day in the pilot testing.

“It is roughly around 15,000 transactions a day or so; we will have to take it to one million,” Sankar said.

The RBI had completed the interoperability with the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) QR codes, and now the focus would be on transactions, he added.

With interoperability, customers can send funds from a CBDC wallet or directly from a bank account using a single QR code.

Commenting on the transactions, Roy said BoB was not working on the number of transactions but focusing more on the users.

“The moment user base will becomes 10 lakh, the number of transactions will go up,” Roy said.