Central Bank Digital Currency will be a major game-changer: RBI Governor

New Delhi, Nov 02: The Reserve Bank of India Governor, Shaktikanta Das said that Central Bank Digital Currency is going to be a major transformation of the way business is done.

Addressing the FIBAC on Wednesday, Das said, 'yesterday we launched the trial of our digital currency, Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) project. It was indeed a landmark moment in the history of currency in our country. Going forward, it will be a landmark moment. It will be a landmark achievement so far as the functioning of the entire economy is concerned."

FIBAC is the annual banking conference which is organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Indian Banks' Association. "Will to try and launch the CBDC in a full-fledged manner in the near future," the Governor said.

"We will announce the date separately, but I don't want to give a target date by which time the CBDCs will be launched in our full-scale manner, because this is something where we have to proceed very carefully. This is the first time the world is doing it. We don't want to be in a great hurry, we want to learn from the experience," he further added.

"Based on the learnings and experience of the pilot project of end-to-end digitisation of KCC loans, our endeavor would be to launch it in a full-scale manner if everything goes alright, not only for the farmers' loans, but also for the SME loans. We hope to launch it on a nationwide basis during the calender year 2023," Das said while announcing that end-to-end digitisation of Kisan Credit Card loans will be launched on a nationwide basis during the calendar year 2023.

"This pilot project on digitalisation of KCC lending is expected to play a pivotal role in facilitating credit flow to the unserved and underserved rural population by making the credit process faster and more efficient. When fully implemented, this has the potential to transform the rural credit delivery system of the country," Governor Das said.