The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today in Abu Dhabi, to enhance cooperation and jointly enable innovation in financial products and services. Under the MoU, the two central banks will collaborate on various emerging areas of FinTech, especially Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and explore interoperability between the CBDCs of CBUAE and RBI. CBUAE and RBI will join

Reserve Bank is organising its second global hackathon – “HARBINGER 2023 – Innovation for Transformation” with the theme ‘Inclusive Digital Services’. The Hackathon invites participants to develop solutions that have the potential to make digital financial services accessible to the differently abled, facilitate efficient compliance, extend the reach of Central Bank Digital Currencies and enhance the scalability of blockchains. HARBINGER 2023 invites innovative ideas

The Reserve Bank had announced opening of the Fourth Cohort under Regulatory Sandbox vide Press release dated June 06, 2022 for theme ‘Prevention and Mitigation of Financial Frauds’. 2. The Reserve Bank received nine applications of which six have been selected for the ‘Test Phase’. The entities, as per details below, shall commence testing of their products from February 2023. Sl. No. Sandbox Entity Description 1 Bahwan Cybertek Private Limited The solution ‘rt360 Re

Shri Shaktikanta Das, Governor, Reserve Bank of India, held a meeting with select FinTech entities (including AgriTechs) and some of their Associations on December 14, 2022. The meeting was also attended by Shri M. K. Jain, Deputy Governor, along with a few senior officials of the RBI. In his introductory remarks, the Governor stated that FinTech initiatives and start-ups are important segments of aspirational India. They are playing a transformative role in the finan

The Reserve Bank announces the launch of the first pilot for retail digital Rupee (e₹-R) on December 01, 2022. It may be recalled that RBI had, in a Press Release dated October 31, 2022, indicated that the pilot in e₹-R would commence in a month’s time. 2. The pilot would cover select locations in closed user group (CUG) comprising participating customers and merchants. The e₹-R would be in the form of a digital token that represents legal tender. It would be issued i

RBI vide Press Release dated October 7, 2022 had announced that the Reserve Bank will soon commence pilot launches of Digital Rupee (e₹) for specific use cases. Accordingly, the first pilot in the Digital Rupee - Wholesale segment (e₹-W) shall commence on November 1, 2022. 2. The use case for this pilot is settlement of secondary market transactions in government securities. Use of e₹-W is expected to make the inter-bank market more efficient. Settlement in central ba

An Inter-Regulatory Technical Group on FinTech (IRTG on FinTech) had been constituted under the aegis of the Financial Stability and Development Council - Sub Committee (FSDC-SC). The terms of reference (ToR) of IRTG on FinTech include discussion on issues relating to hybrid product/service falling under the regulatory ambit of different financial sector regulators for admission in Regulatory Sandbox (RS) and framing of Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Inter-ope

The Reserve Bank of India has today released a Concept Note on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for India. The purpose behind the issue of this Concept Note is to create awareness about CBDCs in general and the planned features of the Digital Rupee (e₹), in particular. It explains the objectives, choices, benefits, and risks of issuing a CBDC in India. The Note also seeks to explain Reserve Bank’s approach towards introduction of the CBDC. The Concept Note also di

Based upon the feedback received from various stakeholders, and in order to foster continuous innovation in various areas pertaining to fintech as well as to provide testing platform to the different products/ services/ technology which fall under the domain of the Reserve Bank as indicated in para 6.1.3 of the Enabling Framework for Regulatory Sandbox, it is announced that the Fifth Cohort under Regulatory Sandbox will be theme neutral. Innovative products/ services/

The Reserve Bank had announced opening of the ‘On Tap’ application facility for the theme ‘Retail Payments’ under Regulatory Sandbox vide Press release dated October 08, 2021. 2. In this regard, it is informed that the below mentioned two entities have been selected for the ‘Test Phase’: Sl. No. Sandbox Entity Product Description 1 HDFC Bank (in partnership with Crunchfish AB1) The product ‘Offline Retail Payments’ provides capability for customer and merchants to be