India's Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) now has about 1.5 million users, and more than 300,000 merchants are accepting payments in digital rupees. The pilot program is running through 13 banks in 26 cities.
The RBI Governor, Shaktikanta Das, shared this update during the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai. The digital rupee pilot started in November for wholesale use and in December for retail use.
The goal is to reach 1 million daily CBDC transactions by December, which will provide valuable data for analysis. Back in February, 50,000 users and 5,000 merchants had adopted the CBDC, and by July, the user base had grown to 1.3 million with 300,000 merchants accepting digital rupees.
