E-rupee in circulation breaches Rs1k cr mark in Mar

Mumbai: The value of central bank digital currency (CBDC) or e-rupee in circulation jumped to Rs 1,016 crore at the end of March 2025 from Rs 234 crore in the year-ago period, the Reserve Bank said on Thursday. The RBI is exploring the commencement of CBDC pilots on cross-border payments, it said in the annual report without giving a timeline.

A bulk of Rs 857 crore of the e-rupee in circulation is in Rs 500 denomination, the annual report said, adding Rs 200 (Rs 91 crore in circulation) and Rs 100 (Rs 38 crore in circulation) denominations also have sizeable presence.

As at end-March 2025, the e-rupee retail pilot was expanded to 17 banks and 60 lakh users. To further enhance adoption and improve distribution, certain non-banks have been allowed to offer CBDC wallets. Moreover, the scope of e-rupee-Wholesale was further expanded and diversified with the addition of four standalone primary dealers (SPDs), it said.

Starting with the initial use cases of person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M), the Reserve Bank expanded the central bank digital currency (CBDC)-Retail (e-rupee-R) pilot to include offline and programmability features in FY25, the annual report said.

The CBDC was first introduced in November 2022 initially with a wholesale pilot, which was followed up with a retail one as well. Simplifying cross-border payments was one of the stated advantages of the CBDC, which had to be introduced in face of the challenge to the currency system from non-fiat virtual currencies like Bitcoins. “...the Reserve Bank is exploring commencement of CBDC pilots on cross-border payments both on bilateral and multilateral basis to overcome key challenges related to turnaround time, efficiency and transparency,” it said.