India is forging mobile-payment linkages with several countries, a senior official at the South Asian nation's central bank said on Wednesday.
“We have one arrangement with Sri Lanka. We are working out with other countries like UAE and some neighboring countries as well,” Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in the central Philippine province of Cebu. The country also has “some arrangements” with Bhutan and Nepal.
The RBI is collaborating with other central banks in the Asean region to develop a cross border payments platform for instant payments.
India is one of the few countries in the world to launch a central bank digital currency, although on a pilot basis. The RBI is testing the security aspects of the digital currencies and conducting studies about their potential impact on bank deposits and even monetary policy transmission, officials including Sankar, have said in the past.
The RBI sees CBDCs as the future form of money and the most cost-effective solution for cross border payments, trade settlements and remittances. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das recently offered technical solutions to any country interested in establishing common international standards for cross-border payments.
Sankar signaled that a digital currency rollout for wider public use might take a while.
“We are in no hurry to roll it out immediately,” he said. “Once we have some visibility of what the outcome or impact will be, we'll roll it out. We don't keep a specific timeline for that.”
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