August 24, 2026 09:26 pm (IST)
Follow us:
Digital Rupee
RBI begins digital rupee pilot in four cities
Mumbai/IBNS: Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot kicked off on Thursday (Dec. 1), a month after India's central bank launched the wholesale version for the same.
Initially, RBI will start the process with four banks- ICICI Bank, SBI, Yes Bank, and IDFC Bank.
In the second phase, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank will also join in.
The pilot will take place in select locations within a Closed User Group (CUG), as per an official press release.
Delhi, Mumbai, Bhubaneshwar, and Bengaluru have been selected as the pilot cities, while Gangtok, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Indore and Kochi among others are next in line.
Digital Rupee
The e-rupee will be a legal tender in the form of a digital token.
Issued denominations will be the same as the physical notes and coins in circulation.
People will be allowed tokeep digital rupee in the e-wallet given by participating banks.
The e-currency will be in use for Person-to-Person (P2P) and Person-to-Merchant (P2M) transactions, as per media reports.
Payments to merchants can be made using QR codes displayed at merchant locations.
Points of difference with UPI
Unlike UPI, users will need to create a separate CBDC account linked with RBI's server, Moneycontrol reported.
Plus, the users will have to back up their CBDC account with a savings account, as per an IndiaToday report.
The transactions will take place on the Indian central bank's blockchain and not on bank servers such as UPI, Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) or National Electronics Funds Transfer (NEFT) transactions, according to a Moneycontrol report.
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
Support objective journalism for a small contribution.
Latest Headlines
Tata Power Renewables marks a major milestone with the commissioning of 190.5 MW FDRE project in Rajasthan. All details inside
Mon, Aug 24 2026
Samsung's big AI push in India: New Pune facility to power next-gen data centre cooling
Mon, Aug 24 2026
Best Indicators For Futures Trading
Mon, Aug 24 2026
China orders massive EV recall: Nearly 3 million Teslas among 4.3 million vehicles affected
Mon, Aug 24 2026
Yes Bank launches ‘YES Essence’ for women. How can you avail it?
Fri, Aug 21 2026
Aditya Birla Capital enters gold loans: What consumers should know
Fri, Aug 21 2026