HDFC Bank unveils Digital Rupee applications
Mumbai, KNT: HDFC Bank has showcased multiple use cases for India’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), or Digital Rupee, covering consumer rewards, promotional vouchers, corporate employee allowances, merchant payments and offline transactions.
The initiatives, unveiled at an industry forum last week, include redemption of credit-card reward points against Digital Rupee, Digital Rupee gift vouchers for customer promotions and a corporate portal for disbursing meal, fuel and travel allowances.
Under the proposed reward-point facility, customers will be able to redeem credit-card rewards against Digital Rupee for categories including dining, fuel, apparel and electronics, with redemption available down to the last paise.
The bank also plans to offer Digital Rupee gift vouchers as part of customer promotional campaigns. Once triggered by a qualifying event, the voucher will be loaded into the customer’s HDFC Bank Digital Rupee wallet and can be used by scanning UPI QR codes at merchants.
For corporate customers, HDFC Bank plans to enable organizations to disburse meal, fuel and travel allowances through Digital Rupee using its Corporate NetBanking platform. The bank said programmable payouts can restrict the use of funds to their intended purposes and reduce reconciliation requirements for finance teams.
HDFC Bank Digital Rupee wallets will also be made available on the BHIM platform, enabling customers to make UPI-style payments from their CBDC wallets and widening access to merchant payments.
Another use case showcased by the bank is offline CBDC payments for air travel. Customers will be able to tap their phones on HDFC Bank point-of-sale devices onboard flights to pay for food, beverages and seat upgrades without an internet connection.
“Digital Rupee combines the trust of sovereign money with programmability, transparency and stronger controls,” said Ashish Parthasarathy, Group Head, Branch Banking, Payments, Treasury, Liability Products, Marketing, Virtual Channels and Infrastructure, HDFC Bank.
Rajanish Prabhu, Senior Executive Vice President, HDFC Bank, said the next phase of Digital Rupee adoption would be driven by scale and everyday utility, with applications across UPI, merchant acceptance, rewards, employee benefits and offline payments. [KNT]
