Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) is programmable money which is more than digital money and comes with a lot of benefits, observed Santanu Paul, Founder, CEO & MD, TalentSprint at the 59th WiseViews Leadership Conversations series conducted by ICFAI. Paul delivered a talk on “From UPI to CBDC: The rise and rise of digital money.”
“The demonetisation in 2016 made people think about the digital payments and Covid strengthened it even more. Now more and more people depend on digital payments everywhere they go, be it buying a cup of tea at a local stall or purchasing garments at a retail store. The UPI has simplified the payment process.” he added.
Explaining the rise of the UPI payments further, Paul said that the digital payments has seen a phenomenal rise from 2.07 billion transactions in October 2020 to 5.58 billion transactions in April 2022 and he predicted that one billion transactions per month by 2025 will soon become a reality.
UPI’s success story
“There are 50+ digital payment apps and 250+ banks with 250 million users and 50 million merchants connected to the UPI,” stated Santanu Paul. Smartphone adoption, proactive regulations from the government, open architecture, and fintech partnerships are some of the factors that have helped UPI’s success.
Elaborating the benefits of CBDC, Paul said that it can aid in effective monitoring of all financial transactions, instant settlements, efficient cross-border payments and financial inclusion, and aid distribution to the beneficiaries through non-transferable benefits. “All these steps can help in rise of the GDP of the nation,” he emphasised.
The conversation was moderated by Prof R Prasad, Director - Academic Wing, ICFAI Group, and Prof Sudhakar Rao, Director – Branding, ICFAI Group. About 250 participants including researchers, faculty, working professionals, and students attended the webinar which live-streamed on Facebook as well.