The managing director of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), Dilip Asbe, is positive about the central bank’s recent actions regarding CBDCs.
During a panel at Mumbai Tech Week on Sunday, he expressed his support for the digital rupee initiative. He said the Reserve Bank of India ‘s new plans for the central bank’s digital currency (CBDC) could further boost the growth of the technology financial sector.
He noted in an ET report that “the RBI governor announced the introduction of programmable money, offline functionality and some new CBDC initiatives” at a recent monetary policy meeting.
on February 8, the country’s central bank announced that it had allowed program mable digital currency. In this way, it will be possible to exchange it while people are offline. In addition, Asbe said that the implementation of tokenization and use cases for delivery and payment could result in the adoption of CBDC in the country. In its 2024 monetary policy statement, the RBI proposed additional programmability features, as well as offline payment capabilities in CBDC for retailers.
The bank reported that “programmability will facilitate transactions for specific/targeted purposes, and offline functionality will enable these transactions in areas with poor or limited Internet connectivity.” According to claims by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, companies will also benefit from the ability to program specific expenses.
The central bank plans to introduce rules to authenticate digital payment transactions using e-groups. The RBI is testing new authentication methods, such as sending one-time passwords in SMS messages.
In September, the RBI partnered with several leading financial institutions to introduce innovative digital rupee features. Offline CBDC transactions and linking CBDC to the Unified Payment Interface(UPI), which is widely used in India, are some of the features it is offering.
As previously reported, State Bank of India, India’s largest public sector bank, has already integrated the digital rupee with UPI. At the same time, the RBI has also launched a CBDC pilot program for interbank lending, with nine major lending banks participating.
Cautious about CBDC, the bank is currently exploring technological solutions to privacy issues. To make sure CBDC is a safe commodity for the entire country, privacy legislation is being worked on.
