On 29 May 2025, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released its Annual Report for 2024–25, confirming the expansion of its digital rupee pilots to include new use cases such as programmable payments and offline functionality.
The retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot now spans 600,000 users and 17 banks, while the wholesale pilot has added four standalone primary dealers. To support wider adoption, RBI will permit certain non-banks to offer CBDC wallets.
The programmability feature is aimed at enabling controlled-use scenarios such as subsidies or corporate expense rules. Offline capability is being introduced to support usage in regions with limited internet access.
The move comes amid surging digital payments growth in India, with the RBI highlighting that the country accounted for 48.5% of global real-time payments by volume in the last financial year.