RBI and NPCI look for offline methods to boost digital payment adoption

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) are strategically targeting offline and feature phone-based payments, along with purpose-defined transactions, to propel the adoption of the central bank-backed digital currency (CBDC), according to a report by The Economic Times (ET).

The shared vision of both the RBI and NPCI is to streamline CBDC usage, making digital payments as straightforward as traditional cash transactions. To this end, the RBI has established a sandbox allowing startups to experiment with various CBDC use cases. Despite initial expectations for daily transactions to reach over a million by the year-end, the current figures hover in the tens of thousands.