Digital Rupee is a currency that you can not touch but can use just like a simple currency.
Digital currency in India, also known as the digital rupee (e₹), is a digital note issued by the Reserve Bank of India.
The other name of this is Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
The idea of digital currency was proposed in January 2017 and launched in November 2022.
The RBI has announced the digital rupee launching in a press release. The release number for the announcement by the RBI was 2022-2023/1118.
What is a digital rupee?
This is unlike any other cryptocurrency because it will have the same value as note currency. For example, 1 digital rupee currency is equal to 1 rupee.
Now people do not have to worry about keeping cash. They can keep their money in the form of digital currency that they can keep on their mobile.
This year while giving the budget, India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, said that they will launch the digital currency in 2022-2023.
And they have kept their promise by giving the gift of digital currency to the public.
The government had decided to launch digital currency to decrease the cost of printing the notes for the transaction.
There are mainly two types of digital currency that RBI will launch.
- Digital rupee wholesale
- Digital rupee retail
Digital rupee wholesale
The banks will use this currency for government securities and their in-between transaction (which means transferring money from one bank to other).
Digital rupee retail
This will be launched for the general public to do their transactions.
At present, the pilot project for the digital rupee is launched as a project for Digital rupee wholesale. Soon it will be available for the public to use.
How digital rupee is different from cryptocurrency
There are some differences between the digital rupee and cryptocurrency that we will discuss below.
- Firstly, the digital rupee is officially issued by RBI, so it is legal compared to cryptocurrency. There is no banker for cryptocurrency, whereas the digital rupee has RBI as a banker, which launched it.
- Secondly, the digital rupee has the same value as the note rupee currency, whereas cryptocurrency does not have that.
- You can interchange the digital currency and the rupee at any time by going to the bank, which is not available in the case of cryptocurrency.
Banks Selected For Digital Rupee
- State Bank Of India (SBI)
- ICICI
- Kotak Mahindra
- Bank Of Baroda (BOB)
- Yes Bank
- Union Bank Of India
- IDFC First Bank
- HSBC
- HDFC Bank
Benefits Of Digital Rupee
There are a few benefits of digital currency, which we will discuss below.
- The first benefit of the digital rupee is that if you do not have a bank account, you can still use the digital rupee.
- You can change the digital rupee into note currency by visiting the bank.
- You will be able to use it even without an internet connection in the future.
- It is a legal currency issued by the Reserve Bank of India, just like the note currency.
- The government will save money that they spend on printing notes every year. Every year approximately 4500 crore rupees are spent on printing notes.
- The fake currency will be demolished soon by using the digital rupee.
- The currency will last long, as note currency has a life span of 2 to 10 years. But the digital rupee will last long without any damage.
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