Offline e-rupee transactions soon: Das

Mumbai: Digital rupee users will soon be able to execute transactions in areas with limited internet connectivity as the RBI on Thursday announced that offline capability will be introduced on the Central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said that programmability-based additional use cases will be introduced as part of the pilot project. RBI launched a pilot of the retail CBDC in December 2022 and achieved the target of having 10 lakh transactions a day in December 2023. It can be noted that other payment platforms, especially the very popular Unified Payments Interface (UPI), already offer offline possibilities.

“It is proposed to introduce an offline functionality in CBDC-R (Retail) for enabling transactions in areas with poor or limited internet connectivity,” Das said, while announcing the bi-monthly monetary policy review.