The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Wednesday said close to 7.70 lakh small value transactions have been carried out using retail digital Rupee (e₹-R) in five cities so far. The RBI had launched a pilot for retail digital Rupee (e₹-R), or retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) on December 1, 2022. “The total number of (e₹-R) transactions (so far) are roughly about 7,70,000 but these are small value transactions so the amount is small,” the RBI Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar said. He said at present more than 50,000 users and over 5,000 merchants are using retail digital rupee for transactions. Sankar said there are eight banks that are participating in the pilot phase and the RBI is planning to engage more banks. The pilot has been running in five cities, and the RBI is also looking to expand the retail digital rupee pilot to nine more cities, he said. “We want the process to happen, but we want it to happen gradually and slowly. We are in no hurry to make something happen very quickly. We have our targets in terms of users and merchants, and we will go slowly,” Sankar said. Before launching the retail digital rupee pilot, the RBI had launched pilot in the digital rupee - wholesale segment (e₹-W) on November 1, 2022.
