The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced that on November 1, 2022, it will begin pilot launches of the Digital Rupee (eâ1) for specific use cases. According to the notification, the first Digital Rupee pilot will be in the Wholesale segment (eâ1-W) and will begin on Tuesday.
The pilot will also include nine banks, including State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank, IDFC First Bank, and HSBC. “This pilot’s use case is the settlement of secondary market transactions in government securities. The use of eâ1-W is expected to improve the efficiency of the interbank market “In an official statement, the RBI stated. It also stated that settling in central bank money would save money by eliminating the need for settlement guarantee infrastructure or collateral to mitigate settlement risk.