MediaNama: National: Wednesday, 27 September 2023.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) does not have any statistics on the usage of the retail digital rupee (e-rupee) as per a Right to Information (RTI) response received by Srikanth Lakshmanan from the CashlessConsumer collective. The e-rupee is a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) launched in December 2022. The RTI response was shared by Srikanth with MediaNama.
In his RTI request, Lakshmanan had asked RBI for month-wise or cumulative summary statistics on the usage of e-rupee retail with regards to:
The central bank has been sceptical and vocally against private cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum because of the lack of ability of the central bank to track or control such currencies and the risks they pose to financial stability. RBI instead wants to promote the digital rupee, which it issues, as an alternative to private cryptocurrency. But if the central bank does not have any information on this digital rupee, then that is equally concerning.
“The retail eRupee pilot began in December 2022 and there has been very little public announcement with respect to it. RBI Deputy Governor Rabi Sarkar reportedly spoke about it in a closed-door IBA meeting – and in June 2023, banks were asked to expand the scope of the pilot and leading banks launched email marketing campaigns.
RBI denying information to RTI saying it does not hold the data is akin to saying it doesn’t know about the money it is issuing.” — Srikanth Lakshmanan told MediaNama
As per the CashlessConsumer tracker, so far, there have been over 2 million installs of CBDC eRupee apps from Google Play, and as per the RBI Annual Report 2023, Rs 5.7 cores worth of eRupee retail has been issued till the financial year 2022-23, Lakshman informed us.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) does not have any statistics on the usage of the retail digital rupee (e-rupee) as per a Right to Information (RTI) response received by Srikanth Lakshmanan from the CashlessConsumer collective. The e-rupee is a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) launched in December 2022. The RTI response was shared by Srikanth with MediaNama.
In his RTI request, Lakshmanan had asked RBI for month-wise or cumulative summary statistics on the usage of e-rupee retail with regards to:
- Number of users having a wallet.
- Number of transactions made between wallets.
- Number of wallet load transactions done.
- Number of redemption transactions done.
The central bank has been sceptical and vocally against private cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum because of the lack of ability of the central bank to track or control such currencies and the risks they pose to financial stability. RBI instead wants to promote the digital rupee, which it issues, as an alternative to private cryptocurrency. But if the central bank does not have any information on this digital rupee, then that is equally concerning.
“The retail eRupee pilot began in December 2022 and there has been very little public announcement with respect to it. RBI Deputy Governor Rabi Sarkar reportedly spoke about it in a closed-door IBA meeting – and in June 2023, banks were asked to expand the scope of the pilot and leading banks launched email marketing campaigns.
RBI denying information to RTI saying it does not hold the data is akin to saying it doesn’t know about the money it is issuing.” — Srikanth Lakshmanan told MediaNama
As per the CashlessConsumer tracker, so far, there have been over 2 million installs of CBDC eRupee apps from Google Play, and as per the RBI Annual Report 2023, Rs 5.7 cores worth of eRupee retail has been issued till the financial year 2022-23, Lakshman informed us.
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