India’s Digital Currency: CBDC-R

(Central Bank Digital Currency Retail)

CBDC is a sovereign currency and is legitimately the true digital/electronic form of the paper currency. CDBC-Retail, referred to as CBDC-R/ Digital Rupee/ e₹ is an electronic version of cash primarily meant for retail transactions. e₹ provides access to safe money for payment and settlement as it is a direct liability of the Central Bank. e₹ will provide an additional option to the currently available forms of money. 

1. What is Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) or Digital Rupee or e₹?

CBDC or Digital Rupee or e₹ is an electronic form of sovereign paper currency. Issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), it is a legal tender exchangeable at par with the existing paper currency. It is distributed in the form digital tokens in multiple denominations (50 paisa, 1 ₹, 2 ₹, 5₹, 10 ₹, 20₹, 50 ₹, 100 ₹ & 500 ₹) similar to that of paper currency.

2. How does it work?

A customer of Federal Bank needs to download the e₹ application provided by Federal Bank.

OR

Search: “Federal Bank Digital Rupee” on Playstore or App store click on Install / Get respectively.

Upon successful registration on the application, a wallet will be created where e₹ tokens will be held by the user. A user will be able to do the following activities on the application:

• Load and Redeem e₹
• Send, Receive or Collect e₹
• Scan and Pay using e₹

3. How can you join the e₹ ecosystem?

Only eligible Federal Bank customers can use the application from Federal Bank. If you are not an existing customer, click here to get started and open a hassle free account now in under 3 minutes.

Currently the programme is invite only and the users who have received an SMS/Email invite can access the application. 

If you wish to participate and join the ecosystem, register your interest here. 
 

4. Is e₹ same as cryptocurrency such as bitcoin?        

No. e₹ is digital form of currency backed by RBI and is exchangeable on par with the paper currency while, cryptocurrencies are currencies which are not backed by the RBI.

5.  Where can I use e₹ ?

 e₹ can be used to make payments at select merchant outlets. Click here for the complete list of merchants.

5.  How can I make payment to a merchant who doesn’t have CBDC QR?

 CBDC is now interoperable with UPI. Now users can scan both UPI and CBDC QRs to make payments. However, UPI applications cannot be used to scan and pay through a CBDC QR.