RBI E-rupee CBDC: Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday said the RBI will conduct a similar trial in the retail sector this month on a wholesale e-rupee pilot.
He hailed the launch of the central bank digital currency (CBDC) as a historic moment in the history of currencies in the country on the wholesale front among limited banks on Tuesday, and said it would change in a major way. way of doing business.
“The retail part of the CBDC trial will be launched later this month. We will announce the date separately,” he said at the annual FIBAC conference of bankers. Das said the broader desire of the RBI is to carry out a full launch of the CBDC “in the near future”, not sharing a timeline for this.
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“I do not want to give a target date by which time the CBDC will be launched on a full scale because TeaThat is something where we have to proceed very carefully. This is the first time the world is doing this. We don’t want to be in too much of a hurry,” he said.
He said there will be some technical challenges, some process challenges and RBI wants to address all those aspects and present the CBDC in a way that is non-disruptive.
Digitization of Agricultural Credits
Meanwhile, the governor also spoke about the pilot project’s experience on digitization of agricultural loans, and said that the RBI wants to start extending it to small business loans in 2023.
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He said the learnings and experience of the end-to-end digital KCC (Kisan Credit Card) loan pilot currently in Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu will be internalized before expanding the initiative to small businesses.
Das said that in case of end-to-end digital KCC loans, a bank processes data from credit rating agencies, uses artificial intelligence to process satellite data to analyze a farmer’s land And what was cultivated on that land in previous years.
Das said that the documentation process is also simple and the farmer has to visit the bank branch at least several times.
RBI is working closely with banks on this initiative, he said, adding that banks will also have to upgrade their technology infrastructure to carry out such projects.
He said two more banks would very soon start offering digital loans for farmers, joining Federal Bank and the state-run Central Bank of India in this initiative.
The Governor said that the State Governments need to completely digitize the process of verification of their land records and title for the smooth functioning of the scheme.