The RBI wants to increase daily central bank digital currency (CBDC) transactions from up to 10,000 by the end of the year to 10,00,000 by using UPI QR codes, which is an ambitious goal for e-rupee payments. Banks are responsible for promoting the CBDC by enabling UPI QR codes to accept e-rupee payments.
E-rupee payments combine the convenience of digital transactions with the anonymity of cash. Transaction volume has not yet increased, mostly due to the small number of businesses that accept CBDC payments. On December 1, 2022, the RBI had rolled out the e-rupee for retail transactions as a test. As of June, about 13,00,000 users have downloaded the CBDC wallet and around 300,000 merchants are accepting CBDC payments.
RBI deputy governor T Rabi Sankar said that interoperability would enable any merchant accepting UPI payments to also accept CBDC, eliminating concerns about the number of merchants onboarded. He was speaking at a conference organised by the Indian Banks’ Association.
He said that the 13 banks allowed to deal with CBDC had achieved partial interoperability, where QR codes can be scanned and linked to CBDC wallets if available.