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India’s Retail CBDC Pilot Boasts Of 5m Users
An ongoing pilot of retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot has attracted more than 5m users, India’s central bank has said.
Shaktikanta Das, governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), said in a speech on digital infrastructure and emerging technologies that the pilot also has 16 participating banks.
Launched in late 2022, the retail CBDC pilot has evolved from testing common payments use cases to features such as offline payments and programmability.
Das said that programmability could be a “key enabler” for financial inclusion, pointing to recent tests where programmable CBDC had been disbursed to farmers for the purchase of inputs and raw materials.
“Undoubtedly, CBDC has the potential to underpin the payment systems of the future, both for domestic payments and also cross-border payments,” he said.
Dutch Central Bank Unveils Provisional Model For DORA Information Registers
The Dutch Central Bank (DNB) has released a draft standard model for the information registers required under the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), which is set to take effect on January 17, 2025.
To comply with Article 28 of DORA, financial entities must maintain an information register for all ICT service agreements with third-party providers.
To ensure readiness for compliance with the incoming regulation, the regulator has published a new provisional format for these registers, which financial institutions will need to report by early 2025.
The DNB intends to align with the reporting standards used by the European supervisory authorities (ESAs) and anticipates adopting an xBRL-CSV format for data submission. However, the final format will be confirmed once the ESAs finalise their standards.
For institutions that are struggling to meet the new reporting requirements in time, the DNB will offer an alternative submission method using a predefined Excel template, which the central bank will convert to the required format. This template is expected to be available later this year.
The DNB emphasised that the final reporting standard will be communicated as soon as it is confirmed.
