The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reported that its retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot now has 5 million users and 420,000 participating merchants at the end of June. The digital rupee user figures show an increase of 8.7% compared to the previous quarter and merchants have grown by 5%.
A central bank report on Currency and Finance mentioned the figures and noted that the central bank had added programmability and offline functionalities, as previously reported.
Last year three companies started working on an offline digital rupee solution. IDEMIA has won awards for its offline CBDC offering and it was working alongside Airtel Payments Bank and HMD Global, the owner of Nokia. Given around of a third of Indians use feature phones, offline CBDC is necessary as they won’t have internet access.
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