India's IndusInd Bank pilots cenbank's e-rupee payments program with farmers

BENGALURU (Reuters) - India's IndusInd Bank said on Monday it has executed transactions to pay farmers for carbon credits with a programmable version of the Reserve Bank of India's digital currency, or e-rupee.

The RBI piloted its central bank digital currency (CBDC), which uses distributed-ledger technology, in 2022 and allows banks to offer these tokens.

IndusInd is providing a platform for farmers to exchange their carbon credits for CBDCs. Earlier, the farmers could only exchange their credits for fiat rupees.

The private lender conducted the project with 50 farmers in India's Maharashtra state and plans to expand it, it said in an exchange filing.

"This project involves IndusInd Bank crafting digital wallets and managing CBDC transfers," it said.

The RBI has been working with lenders to introduce new features to popularise the digital currency, Reuters reported in September last year.

(Reporting by Varun Hebbalalu in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)