MobiKwik, a digital wallet player, on Tuesday announced that it has launched a full version of India’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) eRupee in partnership with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Yes Bank.
Payments platform CRED has launched a beta version of its eRupee wallet, developed in collaboration with the RBI and Yes Bank.
Yes Bank’s role as the first sponsor bank to enable CBDC issuance for a third party application provider (TPAP) like CRED exemplifies its commitment to driving innovation and supporting the future of digital payments, the company said in a statement.
MobiKwik is the first digital wallet to go live with a full-scale production version of the eRupee wallet, the new CBDC product is available to all its Android users, the company said in a statement.
The eRupee wallet allows users to send and receive funds to other eRupee wallets as well as regular bank accounts via UPI; both peer-to-peer (P2P) and peer-to-merchant (P2M) transactions are supported, it said.
For example, a user can scan and pay on any UPI QR using eRupee as it is fully interoperable on UPI, it said.
“MobiKwik’s large base of existing full KYC users will immediately be able to open an eRupee wallet and load it from their bank account. New MobiKwik users will have to complete video KYC before they can open an eRupee wallet,” it said.
Currently, the eRupee wallet has a daily transaction limit of Rs 50,000, per transaction limit of Rs 10,000, and currency denominations of 50 paise, Re 1, Rs 2, Rs 5, Rs 10, Rs 20, Rs 50, Rs 100, Rs 200, and Rs 500 are available in eRupee, it said.
Announcing the launch, Bipin Preet Singh, Managing Director of MobiKwik, said, “We expect that CBDC will make the Indian rupee digital and further expand the digital economy. eRupee transfers can be made to anyone with an eRupee wallet or UPI ID.” Initially, RBI only permitted banks to offer access to digital currency but in April 2024, it said that it would allow non-banks to offer e-rupee transactions.
