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E-Rupee circulation increased to Rs 1 thousand crore; Know what is RBI's next plan on CBDC
RBI Report: The Reserve Bank of India has said in its annual report that it is considering starting a pilot project of CBDC for cross-border payments. However, the central bank has not given any time limit for this. Let us know in detail what has been told about this.
The Reserve Bank of India announced on Thursday that the value of the central bank digital currency (CBDC) or the e-rupee in circulation rose to Rs 1,016 crore as of the end of March 2025. Its value was Rs 234 crore in the corresponding period the previous year.
The RBI in its annual report has mentioned that a pilot project of CBDC for cross-border payments is to be launched. But the central bank did not specify a time line for this. CBDC was launched in November 2022 with a pilot project in the wholesale segment. Then the retail pilot project was launched as well. One of the key purposes of CBDC was making cross-border payments easier. It was launched to address the challenge to the money system by non-fiat virtual currencies like bitcoin.
The RBI report said, "The Reserve Bank is exploring the possibility of launching CBDC pilots on cross-border payments on a bilateral and multilateral basis to overcome key challenges related to time, efficiency and transparency."
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The report said that bilateral cross-border CBDC pilot projects with select countries are being "actively considered". Progress has been made in finalising its roadmap, technical aspects and use cases.
According to the report, the Reserve Bank's participation in multilateral CBDC initiatives, especially under the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub, is also being considered. The annual report said that of the e-rupee in circulation, a major chunk of Rs 857 crore is in Rs 500 notes, while Rs 200 (Rs 91 crore in circulation) and Rs 100 (Rs 38 crore in circulation) notes also have a significant presence. The e-rupee retail pilot has 17 banks and 60 lakh users on board by the end of March 2025.
The Reserve Bank of India annual report said that Odisha has disbursed e-rupee to 88,000 beneficiaries under the Subhadra Yojana. Also, discussions are underway with several central ministries and state governments to leverage the programmability feature of CBDCs to transfer funds to beneficiaries with a fixed end-use.
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