India’s Digital Rupee Trial to Start by December says RBI Governor

• India to trail its Digital Rupee by the end of this year.
• Mr. Shaktikanta Das: “I think by the end of the year, we should be able to — we would be in a position, perhaps — to start our first trials.”
• Central bank is also exploring the choice between having a centralized ledger for the digital currency or distributed ledger technology (DLT).

The Reserve Bank of India may launch its CBDC trial by December, says RBI governor, Mr Shaktikanta Das.

According to him, “RBI is studying various aspects of a digital currency including its security, its impact on India’s financial sector as well as how it would affect monetary policy and currency in circulation.”

Not only India, many central banks of other countries like China, Europe and the U.K. are exploring CBDC. Basically, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) are the legal tender in digital form or digital version of their fiat currencies.

With the growing interest in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, central banks stepped their efforts to look after CBDC.

According to Das, “We are being extremely careful about it because it’s completely a new product, not just for RBI, but globally,” in an interview with CNBC.

He also added, “The RBI is studying various aspects of a digital currency including its security, impact on India’s financial sector as well as how it would affect monetary policy and currency in circulation.”

Further adding he said, “Central bank is also exploring the choice between having a centralized ledger for the digital currency or the so-called distributed ledger technology (DLT).”