Just-In: RBI Official claims India could launch CBDC Pilot by Q1 2022

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) expects to launch the pilot for its CBDC, latest by the first quarter of next year. According to comments by the central bank’s senior official at the State Bank of India’s Banking and Economic Conclave, RBI is bullish on taking off with the CBDC pilot by Q1 of 2022. However, he asserted that the process is complex and cannot possibly be launched in the blink of an eye. Especially, since the authorities believe that India’s CBDC could play the protagonist in further leading the country into web3 with the innovative and digitized financial systems, henceforth RBI is seeking to be thorough with its CBDC plan. While earlier this year, the RBI governor’s comments were gravitating towards a soft launch of India’s CBDC by December 2021, but with the latest update, the timeline has become clearer, despite the lack of an official confirmation from the authorities.

“I think somewhere it was said that at least by the first quarter of next year a pilot could be launched. So we are bullish on that…We are on the job and we are looking into the various issues and nuances related to CBDC. It’s not a simple thing to just say that CBDC can be a habit from tomorrow on”, the chief general manager at the Department of Payment & Settlement of the RBI, P. Vasudevan told the Business Standard newspaper. “The central bank is also checking if intermediaries can be bypassed altogether, and most importantly, checking if the technology should be decentralized or should be semi-centralised.”, Vasudevan added.

With CBDC advancement, is Crypto’s future dark in India?

As the RBI is undergoing the process of thoroughly examining its CBDC before the pilot launch, Indian Prime Minister,  Narendra Modi’s exclusive remarks on crypto in India do not appear positive for the decentralized industry. At the Sydney Dialogue, while Modi discussed India’s success in the Digital sector and Artificial Intelligence, he also alerted all democratic countries to come together, ensuring Bitcoin and crypto-assets don’t end up in the wrong hands. According to several inside reports, the Indian government is seeking to regulate cryptocurrencies as an asset class and bar their use in the payment sector, and the PM’s latest comments only provide backing to these claims.