E-rupee launch is a historic moment for the country, will come soon for common people

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Wednesday that the introduction of the e-rupee is a historic moment in the history of currency in the country. It will change the way of doing business and the way of transactions. Shaktikanta Das made this statement at FICCI's Banking Conference - FIBAC 2022. Das said the RBI wants to explore all aspects of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
The RBI governor said, "Yesterday, we started the trial of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) project... it will be a historic achievement as far as the functioning of the entire economy is concerned." The Reserve Bank is one of the few central banks in the world to have taken this initiative. “We will try to launch a full-fledged CBDC in the near future,” he added.
RBI currently has to print notes for money flow in the economy. It costs a lot to print it and it gets spoiled in a few years. Due to this new currency has to be printed again. There will be no hassle of printing and spoiling currency in e-rupee. It can be easily stored in a mobile wallet. It will be accepted in the same way as physical currency.
To transact through UPI, money must be deposited in the bank account. For this, either we have to deposit the physical currency in the account ourselves or we will have to transfer money from somewhere to our bank account. This means that someone or the other has to deposit in the physical currency account only once, only then this transfer will be possible.
A bank account will not be required in the e-rupee transactions. RBI will transfer money directly to the wallet instead of physical currency. This means that instead of the way you keep notes in your pocket now, you will keep e-rupee in your wallet and will be able to make payments to each other. What will be its entire process, it will become more clear in the coming days when it is fully launched.
Right now RBI has launched CBDC Wholesale in the first phase of the pilot project. SBI, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank, IDFC First Bank and HSBC have been selected for this. In the second phase, the retail currency will be launched by the end of this month. It will start in select locations first. People of all age groups will be included in this.
It will be fully launched later based on the pilot project experiences. Talking about its features, there is no need for interbank settlement in e-rupee. This is more real-time and the cost of the transaction is also very less. This will ensure timely payment without intermediaries. E-rupee will help in getting rid of the problem of fake currency. The cost of printing paper notes will be saved and the currency will not get spoiled.
According to RBI, it costs Rs 15-17 to print Rs 100 notes in India. A currency note lasts for a maximum of four years. The central bank has to print new notes which are worth thousands of crores. In the financial year 2021-22, RBI printed 4.19 lakh additional notes, which were worth thousands of crores. The cost of digital currency is almost zero.