The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced plans to introduce offline functionality to the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot project, allowing digital rupee users to conduct transactions in areas with limited internet connectivity. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das revealed that the pilot project will incorporate programmability-based additional use cases as well.
The retail CBDC pilot was initiated in December 2022, with the target of achieving 10 lakh transactions per day by December 2023. The introduction of offline functionality aims to cater to regions with poor or limited internet connectivity, such as hilly areas, rural, and urban locations. Multiple offline solutions, both proximity and non-proximity based, will be tested for this purpose.
Furthermore, the programmability feature of the CBDC will enable additional use cases beyond Person to Person (P2P) and Person to Merchant (P2M) transactions. This includes facilitating payments for defined benefits by government agencies and allowing corporates to program specified expenditures like business travel for their employees. Additional features such as validity periods or geographical usage areas can also be programmed into the CBDC.
In addition to CBDC enhancements, RBI also aims to enhance the security features of Aadhaar-enabled Payment Systems (AePS), which saw usage by 37 crore people in 2023. The proposed measures include streamlining the onboarding process for AePS touchpoint operators and adopting a principle-based framework for authentication of digital payment transactions. These initiatives are intended to strengthen security and facilitate the use of newer authentication mechanisms for digital transactions.
(With Agency Inputs)
Read also| RBI Forecasts FY'25 Inflation at 4.5%, Lower Than Current Fiscal's 5.4%
