Pine Labs, an omnichannel merchant trading platform, has announced the acceptance of Digital Rupee on its PoS terminals in partnership with ICICI Bank. The technology integration between the two entities will now support the acceptance of e₹ (digital Rupee) at Pine Labs POS terminals at key retail outlets in Mumbai and Bangalore.
Pine Labs’ execution of the digital rupee payment process is fully digital through dynamic QR embedded into its smart Android PoS terminals.
B Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs, said: “CBDC and Digital Rupee open up exciting opportunities. If implemented correctly, it can speed up the migration from paper to digital currency. Pine Labs is pleased to partner with ICICI Bank in launching CBDC as a payment option under this RBI-executed pilot.”
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Bijith Bhaskar, Head of Digital Channels and Partnerships, ICICI Bank said: “The introduction of CBDC or Digital Rupee is a historic milestone in India’s digital journey. India is among the select few countries globally that have their own digital currency. The digital rupee, which is a tokenized digital version of the Indian rupee, is a robust, secure and additional avenue for users to make payments. Wider acceptance of the digital rupee would speed up its adoption among customers.
“We are delighted to partner with Pine Labs to make Digital Rupee an accepted mode of payment at their commercial POS terminals. This would present a seamless payment option for users and improve the operational efficiency of merchants with Pine Labs PoS terminals.”
RBI’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot for person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) digital rupee transactions is currently live with leading banks including State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank, IDFC First Bank, Union Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HDFC Bank. This controlled retail CBDC pilot is expected to expand to more banks, users and locations, plus more apps.
Once formally introduced across India as legal tender, Digital Rupee is expected to bring reduction in operational costs spent on managing physical cash, improve financial inclusion, and bring resilience and efficiency to payment transactions.