CBDC pilot sees Rs 275cr bond trade on Day 1

Mumbai: Banks transacted in Rs 275-crore worth of government securities using central bank digital currency (CBDC) for the first time. On Tuesday, 48 G-Sec trades took place using CBDC. The deal settled in CBDC is understood to have taken place between IDFC First Bank and ICICI Bank. The nine banks that were selected for the pilot project were State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank, IDFC First Bank and HSBC are understood to have done 3-5 deals each.

IDFC First Bank confirmed that it had executed the first transactions using CBDC for Rs 5 crore. “IDFC First Bank executed the first secondary market transaction in government securities using CBDC settlement today. We are one of the few banks participating in the RBI’s pilot project on digital rupee with the settlement of G-Sec transactions as the use case,” said Piyush Wadhwa, head of financial markets and treasury at IDFC First Bank.

The RBI issued CBDC tokens to the selected banks according to their requests. The trades took place on the existing NDS-OM platform — a screen-based electronic order matching system for secondary market trading in G-Secs. To trade separately using CBDC, the bank used the ‘request for offer’ facility on the platform. This platform was created so that retail buyers who find it

difficult to get trades matching their requirements can put in requests for the fulfilment of their specific requests. Banks that are willing to cater to the requirement can step into the deal and complete the transactions.

Unlike other deals on the NDS-OM, the request for offer platform gives a view of the counterparty bank.

A key difference between regular g-sec trades and CBDC-based deals is that the settlement happens immediately or in a t+0 manner which implies settlement within zero days of the trade. Deals settled via the current account take place within a day of the transaction or t+1.

G-sec gets updated as per regular government bonds instead of making payments from the current account; the payment is made from CBDC account, where banks hold currency based on the indent they have placed with the RBI. Just like regular currency, at the end of the day, banks have the option to continue holding it as CBDC or converting them into regular currency