CashNews.co
Blockchain technology is gaining significant traction in India, particularly following the launch of the Central Bank Digital Currency, e-Rupee. Launched in 2022, the CBDC has sparked a surge of activity, making India the largest market to adopt CBDCs at scale, according to Naveen Mallela of JPMorgan.
He further added that CBDCs will be the next level of UPI that has put India on the global map.
“CBDCs is yet another step in taking Indian payments ahead,” Naveen Mallela, Global Co-Head, Onyx by JP Morgan, told NDTV Profit at the sidelines of Global Fintech Fest 2024.
According to Mallela, CBDCs are looking at how to make real-world cash truly digital and how one can make payments without the internet. This, according to him, will take the CBDCs ahead.
He also added that he is bullish on Finternet space, calling it ‘A World Wide Ledger’. He believes that Finternet will be much ‘grander’ than the previous projects taken by Nandan and his team.
The comments followed days after RBI governor Shaktikanta Das announced that the central bank is currently testing pilots for CBDC with both offline and programmability functions.
Das also emphasised that there should not be any rush to roll out system-wide CBDC before one acquires a comprehensive understanding of its impact on users, on monetary policy, on the financial system, and on the economy.
“Such understanding would emerge from the generation of user data in pilots. The actual introduction of CBDC can be phased in gradually,” he said.