Indian rupee goes digital

Digital currency and fail-safe wireless connectivity should have preceded demonetisation

On December 1, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) introduced a digital rupee (DR), which is also known as the central bank’s digital currency (CBDC). The RBI has authorised four scheduled commercial banks to operationalise the DR in a pilot project mode. Instead of stocking cash for payments, Indians would be able to use DRs to square accounts with other individuals and entities. Henceforth, to make cash payments, individuals, micro, medium and small enterprises (MSMEs) or others would not need to draw cash from their accounts, by going physically to their banks or to ATMs. They could instead send or