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MUMBAI: Banks have disbursed over Rs 1,400 crore in loans under the ‘frictionless credit’ platform, a senior Reserve Bank an official said Thursday. Speaking on the sidelines of an Assocham event: Ajay Kumar Choudharyan executive director at the central bank, said that there are currently about 20,000 central bank digital currency transactions taking place every day.
The RBI launched the new approach earlier this year where lenders can disburse retail loans such as those made to farmers in minutes, using an analytics engine that aggregates borrower data from multiple sources, including banking and land data, to request a loan proposal.
“70,000 loans and over Rs 1,400 crore of loans have been disbursed since August 17,” Choudhary said, adding that the volumes are not important at this point when the project is being tested.
However, he said there are strong prospects for the scheme in the future, adding that it will also reduce operational costs for a lender, giving a bank an opportunity to re-examine the interest it will charge.
On the central bank’s digital currencies, Choudhary said transactions currently average around 18-20,000 per day but expressed confidence that they will grow in the coming months to reach the target of 10 lakh per day by December reach.
He said the upcoming festivities will also help increase the number of transactions, adding that the process of putting the building blocks in place and learning from them is the bigger purpose right now.
Choudhary said the RBI is also looking at testing the central bank’s use of digital currencies in the bell money market on the wholesale CBDC front, adding that the testing process is underway.
Meanwhile, he said that because the statute makes it clear that cash is not part of the cash reserve ratio, CBDC units will not attract the CRR for banks but will be accounted for the statutory liquidity ratio (SLR).
The RBI launched the new approach earlier this year where lenders can disburse retail loans such as those made to farmers in minutes, using an analytics engine that aggregates borrower data from multiple sources, including banking and land data, to request a loan proposal.
“70,000 loans and over Rs 1,400 crore of loans have been disbursed since August 17,” Choudhary said, adding that the volumes are not important at this point when the project is being tested.
However, he said there are strong prospects for the scheme in the future, adding that it will also reduce operational costs for a lender, giving a bank an opportunity to re-examine the interest it will charge.
On the central bank’s digital currencies, Choudhary said transactions currently average around 18-20,000 per day but expressed confidence that they will grow in the coming months to reach the target of 10 lakh per day by December reach.
He said the upcoming festivities will also help increase the number of transactions, adding that the process of putting the building blocks in place and learning from them is the bigger purpose right now.
Choudhary said the RBI is also looking at testing the central bank’s use of digital currencies in the bell money market on the wholesale CBDC front, adding that the testing process is underway.
Meanwhile, he said that because the statute makes it clear that cash is not part of the cash reserve ratio, CBDC units will not attract the CRR for banks but will be accounted for the statutory liquidity ratio (SLR).
