Aiming 1 mn CBDC transactions per day by year-end: RBI Deputy Governor Rabi Sankar

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor T. Rabi Sankar

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor T. Rabi Sankar on July 11 said the central bank is targetting one million Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) transactions per day by end of this year.

Sankar further said this will help the central bank to study and understand the functioning of CBDC and its impact on the economy.

Sankar was speaking at Indian Banks' Association event on July 11.

"We should target a million transactions a day by the end of this year," Sankar said.

Also read: CBDC can be explored for settlement in primary G-Sec market: SBI Chairman

In the June monetary policy, the deputy governor had said the central bank plans to have one million customers under the CBDC by the end of June.

But, as of July 11, the central bank reached 1.3 million customers.

Sankar also said they have decided to take advantage of the UPI network to increase transactions in CBDC.

"So, we said that there has to an interoperability of the QR codes," he added.

Last week, in Moneycontrol's startup conclave, Sankar said the central bank is trying to target interoperability of CBDC with unified payment interface (UPI).

“The second thing we are targeting is interoperability with UPI. So anyone with a UPI QR, so that QR can be used if I and merchant have a CBDC, the payment will go to his bank account,” he added at the conclave.

Last year, the central bank rolled out pilot testing of CBDC in wholesale as well as retail segment.

Also read: RBI trying to target interoperability of CBDC with UPI: Dy governor Rabi Sankar

With both wholesale and retail pilots live in the country, the RBI has joined 17 other central banks including those of China and South Korea whose pilots are underway.

The RBI on November 29 while announcing the pilot said that the implementation will be done in phases in partnership with a few banks and in some cities to start with and the scope will later be scaled up.

The pilot will be implemented among a small group of customers and merchants, starting with the four cities of Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar. It will in the next phase be extended to Ahmedabad, Gangtok, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Lucknow, Patna and Shimla.

Further, Sankar said they need to focus mostly on the cross border transactions as they will get biggest advantage from this area.