CCAvenue—which received payment aggregator licence from the Reserve Bank of India last month—will offer CBDC as a mode of payment, just like other payment modes such as UPI, wallet, IMPS on its platform, in partnership with banks.

“CCAvenue is working with IDFC First Bank to roll out CBDC on its platform,” the official said on the condition of anonymity. Queries sent to Infibeam Avenues remained unanswered till press time.

On 1 December, the RBI began a pilot of its retail CBDC in Mumbai, Delhi, Bhubaneswar and Bengaluru, with initial participation from State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, IDFC First Bank, and Yes Bank. The central bank announced that the scope of the pilot will be extended gradually to include more banks, users and locations as needed.

Transactions using the retail CBDC can be both person-to-person and person-to-merchant, and payments can be made using QR codes showed at merchant locations.

According to the official cited above, if you have an account with any of the above-mentioned banks, then you can create an instance of CBDC in your own account and can move your own money to your CBDC. “While transferring, you can also define how much and what type of currency you want.”

“Banks will work with merchants, and CCAvenue will work on the bank’s rails—which means all merchants who use IDFC First Bank’s digital payments system can avail this facility,” he added.