The Reserve Bank of India said on Friday that it intends to expand the use cases for its central bank digital currency - commonly referred to as the digital or e-rupee - to cover a broader set of welfare payment applications and to evaluate cross-border transaction functionality, according to the central bank's 2025-26 annual report.
Over the fiscal year the RBI ran a series of welfare-linked CBDC pilots across different jurisdictions. The report cites pilot programs in Gujarat, Puducherry and Chandigarh where beneficiaries were paid food subsidies using the digital rupee. Those exercises employed the CBDC's programmability feature, with multiple government agencies initiating pilots across various direct benefit transfer schemes to channel public funds toward designated uses.
According to the annual report, India is carrying out at least ten CBDC pilot programs nationwide to assess whether the e-rupee can deliver welfare payments more efficiently. The RBI presented the pilots as experiments to test operational design and the CBDC's application-specific features.
The report also records a contraction in retail e-rupee circulation. Retail holdings of the e-rupee stood at 7.71 billion rupees as of March 31, 2026, down from 10.16 billion rupees a year earlier, the RBI's figures show.
On cross-border initiatives, the central bank said it has signed a digital assets cooperation agreement with the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The RBI is also discussing pilot projects with Singapore and the United Arab Emirates aimed at exploring cross-border payments using the digital rupee. In addition, the central bank is participating in multilateral efforts led by the Bank for International Settlements.
The report frames these activities as part of a measured program of experimentation and international cooperation focused on both domestic welfare use cases and the potential for cross-border settlement and transfers. The RBI's disclosure emphasizes ongoing pilots and dialogues rather than any operational rollout timetable.
Context and implementation notes
The pilots highlighted in the report used programmability to target how funds are used within direct benefit transfer schemes. Multiple government agencies launched such pilots, indicating coordinated testing across state and central programs. The RBI characterized the at-least-ten pilot programs as a nationwide effort to test whether the e-rupee can improve the delivery of welfare payments.
The decline in retail e-rupee circulation documented in the report provides a numerical snapshot of current usage levels at the end of the fiscal year, while the international agreements and discussions point to a continued focus on cross-border experimentation with select partners.