India’s major retail chain Reliance Retail is set to roll out in-store support for the digital rupee. The move would scale up the adoption of the govt and RBI-approved e-currency.
Reliance Retail, a division of the Indian conglomerate Reliance, announced that it has begun implementing CBDC support at its Freshpik gourmet shop line and would gradually release the functionality to all of its sites.
The Mukesh Ambani-led firm announced a partnership with fintech Innoviti Technologies, ICICI Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank to introduce in-store support for the digital rupee.
In the media statement, the retail behemoth announced that customers who seek to pay using the nation’s CBDC [Central Bank Digital Currency], known as e-R, will be provided a dynamic digital rupee acceptance QR code to scan at the store. V Subramaniam, Director stated,
This historic initiative of pioneering digital currency acceptance at our stores is in line with the company’s strategic vision of offering the power of choice to Indian consumers. With more citizens willing to transact digitally, this initiative will help us provide yet another efficient and secure alternative payment method to customers at our stores.
It needs to recall that the nation’s central bank began e₹-R’s pilot testing last December for retail markets across select Indian cities.
According to reports, the Reserve Bank of India aims to reduce the amount of cash used in the economy, make international payments more affordable and seamless, and shield users from the volatility of private cryptocurrencies by implementing e-R.
Based on the test results of the ongoing pilot, the central bank plans to experiment with additional features and applications of the digital rupee.
However, neither cryptocurrency nor blockchain technologies found any place in India‘s union budget for 2023, which dashed the aspirations of the nation’s millions of crypto holders.
No Place For Crypto In India’s 2023 Budget
Many members of the Indian crypto community hoped that the hefty crypto tax, which went into effect in March 2022, would be somewhat reduced.
On February 1, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced significant modifications to the income tax bands in the government budget. Still, the minister did not bring up blockchain technology, digital currency issued by central banks, or cryptocurrency during the debate.
The booming crypto industry was abruptly put out of business last year when the Indian govt. imposed a 30% tax on cryptocurrency income and a 1% tax deducted at source [TDS] on all cryptocurrency transactions.