CBDC pilot project in call money mkt by Oct

New Delhi: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is likely to launch the pilot of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for transactions for interbank borrowing or call money market by October, central bank Executive Director Ajay Kumar Choudhary said on Sunday.

The pilot of the wholesale CBDC, known as the Digital Rupee-Wholesale (e-W), was launched on November 1, 2022, with the use case being limited to the settlement of secondary market transactions in government securities.

“The RBI will introduce the wholesale CBDC in the call market either this month or next month,” Choudhary said on the sidelines of the G20 Leaders’ Summit here.

The introduction of CBDC was announced in the Union Budget 2022-23 by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and necessary amendments to the relevant section of the RBI Act, 1934, were made with the passage of the Finance Bill 2022. The RBI picked nine banks -- State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, YES Bank, IDFC First Bank and HSBC -- for its pilot project for wholesale CBDC. Besides, the central bank has already rolled out a pilot in the retail version of the CBDC (e-R) on December 1, 2022.