India's central bank to start testing retail digital rupee with four banks

The Reserve Bank of India said Tuesday that it will launch its first pilot for a retail central bank digital currency on December 1. The program will initially see participation from State Bank of India ( OTCPK:SBKFF ) ( OTCPK:SBKJY ), ICICI Bank ( NYSE: IBN ), Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank in four cities across the country. The digital rupee testing will later extend to nine more cities and four additional lenders, according to a release. The pilot program will be comprised of participating customers and merchants. The digital rupee, which won't earn any interest, will be issued in the same denominations that fiat currency is issued, and payments to merchants will be made using QR codes. Many central banks across the globe, meanwhile, are taking similar initiatives in which they're exploring digital currencies that would be issued by them. Earlier this month, Japan's central bank was said to conduct CBDC experiments with three of the country's banking giants. In August 2021, the RBI reportedly planned to roll out its CBDC trial programs by December of that year.