IndusInd Bank Ltd. launched the pilot of programmable central bank digital currency in collaboration with Circularity Innovation Hub India, the private lender said in an exchange filing on Monday.
In February, Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das said that the central bank was adding programmability and offline functionality to the digital currency. Currently, the retail CBDC pilot allows transactions from person-to-person and person-to-merchant using digital rupee wallets provided by selected banks.
With this, the bank can programme the end use of funds in the form of digital rupees.
In this case, IndusInd Bank disbursed programmable digital rupees to 50 farmers in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra in lieu of the generation of carbon credits, the bank said.
Currently, the CBDC pilot is operational across 13 banks, namely State Bank of India, ICICI Bank Ltd., Yes Bank Ltd., and IDFC First Bank Ltd. in the first phase.
However, IndusInd Bank is the first bank to execute programmability for the CBDC pilot.
This project involves a collaboration between IndusInd Bank, Circularity Innovation Hub India Pvt., Hindustan Agro and Jackfruit King Co., and Emertech Innovations to promote "circularity credits from recycling agricultural waste."
The next phase of the project will "focus on safai karmacharis, aiming to increase their income by leveraging revenues generated from the collection, recycling, and repurposing of plastic waste," the bank said in the filing.
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