RBI meets target as December 27 saw more than 1 million CBDC transactions

The Reserve Bank of India launched the pilot project for the retail e-rupee on December 1, 2022.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has met its target of  hitting a million daily transactions in the retail segment of its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) by the end of 2023.

"We also made significant strides in usage of the e-rupee (CBDC) and exceeded the milestone of 1 million transactions in a day on December 27, 2023," Das wrote in an end-of-the-year letter to RBI staff on December 29. Moneycontrol has reviewed a copy of the letter.

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The RBI had set itself the steep target last year, with Moneycontrol reporting in September 2023 that daily transactions averaged just 20,000-25,000 in July. Retail CBDC transaction data is not available publicly.

The RBI, which launched the pilot project for the retail e-rupee on December 1, 2022, has been looking to push volumes of the digital currency so that it can learn more about how the public uses it. In recent weeks, commercial banks have even offered incentives such as cash-backs to promote the use of the retail CBDC and sign up new users.

Meanwhile, on the wholesale front, the RBI has looked to expand the use case of the CBDC, and in October introduced it in the inter-bank call market. However, the number of transactions of the wholesale CBDC have been extremely few, although that has not deterred the RBI.

In his letter to RBI staff, Governor Das also said the success of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) meant the model is being followed internationally. Commenting on the economy, the governor noted that the RBI had been able to "effectively navigate" several challenges in 2023.

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"On the monetary policy front, we have managed to moderate inflation while not losing focus on growth. Our actions were timely and decisive," the governor's letter said.

"We have also scaled new heights in maintaining macroeconomic and financial stability. Our regulatory and supervisory policies continued to be fine tuned to ensure a robust financial system," it added, calling on the central bank's staff to "finds ways to improve the efficacy and quality" of its service delivery.