G20 Outreach Seminar on “Central Bank Digital Currency: The India Story”

An International Financial Architecture Working Group Meeting of G20 is scheduled on January 30 and 31, 2023 at Chandigarh. In the build-up to this event, a domestic event, an outreach seminar titled “Central Bank Digital Currency: The India Story” was organised by RBI at Chandigarh on January 25, 2023 at Chandigarh. Participants comprising Government officials, students, academicians, commercial bank officials, representatives from national and local print and electronic media participated in the event.

The event was organized to create awareness about Digital Rupee i.e., India’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The event started with the keynote address by Shri Ajay Kumar Choudhary, Executive Director, RBI wherein he emphasized the launch of the pilot of Digital Rupee, India’s CBDC, is a significant monetary milestone. He highlighted that India is one of the first major economies to launch a CBDC pilot in both Wholesale and Retail segment. Further, he explained the key motivations leading to the launch of Digital Rupee and the way forward.
The keynote address was followed by a presentation by the FinTech Department of RBI. The presentation underscored various aspects of the digital currency including design choices and provided a global perspective. Further, it provided information about the current pilots, featured the use cases, emphasized about the benefits of digital rupee and indicated about the possible future applications.

Subsequently, an interactive Question and Answer session was held to address public inquisitiveness and interest wherein questions around this initiative were answered and doubts were clarified. Finally, the event ended with a live demonstration of Digital Rupee transactions to provide a glimpse of real user experience.

Additionally, another town hall event on e₹ was held at Chandigarh in the second half of the same day i.e., January 25, 2023. This event was organised by State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and other leading banks participating in the e₹ pilot. The event was organised primarily for college/ university students. It included presentation by RBI followed by interactions as also live demonstration of e₹ transactions.