The Development of the Digital Rupee

Abstract

This chapter critically examines the adoption challenges of India's digital rupee as a central bank digital currency, offering insights valuable for global banking sectors. Through a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys, the study identifies key barriers to the digital rupee's widespread acceptance, including public trust discrepancies, the dominance, socio-economic disparities, and technological hurdles. Despite a high professed understanding of the digital rupee, actual usage rates are low, highlighting a significant gap in financial literacy and the need for enhanced educational efforts. The research further reveals gender and income disparities in digital rupee awareness, underscoring the importance of addressing these issues for financial inclusion. Technological readiness, contrary to expectations, does not directly correlate with higher adoption rates, pointing to the necessity of a comprehensive strategy that goes beyond mere technological deployment.