HDFC Bank released this big update regarding e-rupee, launched this facility
On Thursday, HDFC Bank, the country's largest private bank, added over 100,000 customers and over 170,000 merchants to its CBDC pilot program and launched and made the e-Rupee platform usable. The CBDC was established by the RBI last November.
![HDFC Bank released this big update regarding e-rupee, launched this facility](https://www.sangritoday.com/uploads/images/2023/07/image_750x_64b007429375a.jpg)
HDFC Bank, the country's largest private sector bank, today said it has onboarded over 1 lakh customers and over 1.7 lakh merchants in its CBDC pilot program.
Apart from this, the bank has also launched an interoperable UPI QR code with the e-rupee platform.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last November launched the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot program, a symbolic digital version of the rupee, for wholesale and retail in early December.
Earlier this week, RBI Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar said that the monetary authority plans to increase digital rupee transactions from 5,000-10,000 to 1 million per day by the end of the year.
The number of banks in the e-Rupee pilot project has increased from 8 banks initially to 13 and the CBDC currently has 1.3 million users, including 3 million merchants.
T Rabi Shankar said, till the end of April this year there were only 1 lakh users, which has now increased to 13 lakhs.
Following the launch, the central bank announced CBDC interoperability with the UPI system in June.
With the launch of the UPI QR code today, HDFC Bank said it is one of the first banks to complete the integration process and allow its merchants on board to accept e-Rupee payments from their customers.
For merchants, the main advantage is that they only need to display a QR code at the storefront or through the acquiring bank mobile application, said Parag Rao, payments head of consumer finance, technology, and digital banking at the bank.
Currently, HDFC Bank offers e-Rupee payment facility in 26 cities, including all major metros and smaller cities like Bhubaneswar, Guwahati, Gangtok, Indore, Bhopal, Lucknow, Patna, Kochi, Goa, Shimla, Jaipur, Ranchi, Nagpur Varanasi, Visakhapatnam, Pondicherry and Vijayawada.