Gandhinagar: Demonstrating its commitment to innovation, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) unveiled two groundbreaking initiatives, namely "Frictionless Credit" and "Central Bank Digital Currency," at the innovation pavilion held during the 3rd meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) under India's G20 presidency at the prestigious Mahatma Mandir Convention Centre in Gandhinagar.

Currently taking place in Gujarat's Gandhinagar, the G20 event will continue until Tuesday, attracting global attention.

One of the highlights of the exhibition is the experiential center dedicated to the revolutionary Digital Kisan Credit Card (KCC), which showcases the potential of digitized land record data in streamlining and digitizing the loan sanctioning and disbursal process. With this advanced solution, farmers can obtain loans without the need to physically visit a bank branch, ensuring a completely paperless and hassle-free experience.

The pilot program for the Digital KCC is currently being implemented in select districts of Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh. These pilot projects are being executed in collaboration with the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH), a fully-owned subsidiary of RBI. By leveraging the Digital Kisan Credit Card, the Reserve Bank has significantly reduced operational costs and opportunity costs while drastically reducing the loan processing time from weeks to mere minutes for farmers. Rajesh Bansal, CEO of Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBiH), highlighted these transformative benefits during the G20 meeting.

In addition, the event showcased live transactions using the Digital Retail Rupee. Visitors had the opportunity to watch a concise video titled "Central Bank Digital Currency- India Story," which succinctly explained the concept, motivation, and various use cases of the ongoing CBDC-Retail pilot.

The retail digital rupee has made significant progress under RBI's guidance, expanding its presence from four banks in four cities to thirteen banks in twenty-six cities. Currently, over 1.3 million users and 300,000 merchants have been successfully onboarded by participating banks. The RBI aims to achieve full-scale interoperability with the UPI QR code system, further enhancing the accessibility and usability of the retail digital rupee.

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