MUMBAI, October 9 — The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday unveiled an authoritative operational framework to interlink India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC / Digital Rupee) with multilateral regional payment platforms across ASEAN and BRICS member economies, aiming to slash cross-border remittance costs by up to 75 percent.
According to the policy roadmaps drafted in coordination with NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), the multilateral connectivity builds upon established bilateral corridors with Singapore’s PayNow and the UAE’s Aani network. India has committed to operationalizing technical protocols under 'Project Nexus'—an interlinking blueprint conceptualized by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub to enable instant peer-to-peer and merchant remittances across Southeast Asia.
The central bank emphasized that Wholesale CBDC (e₹-W) will serve as an automated, programmable atomic settlement rail for cross-border trade transactions, drastically mitigating foreign exchange volatility risks and reducing settlement turnaround latency from multiple banking days to near real-time. The framework aligns directly with G20 priorities on accelerating global cross-border payment efficiency.
Digital Public Infrastructure (India Stack), the statutory basis of the Digital Rupee under Section 22 of the RBI Act 1934, Project Nexus under the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the internationalization of the Indian Rupee via Special Rupee Vostro Accounts (SRVA), and the G20 Cross-Border Payments Roadmap are critical syllabus topics for UPSC Civil Services (GS-III: Indian Economy & Fintech) and RBI Grade B recruitment.