India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced that its central bank would launch a digital version of its currency in the next financial year 2022-23 that begins on April 1.
The southern neighbour is set to be one of the largest economies to introduce a central bank digital currency while Nepal’s another neighbour, China, has already started trials for its digital currency in various cities.
Though Nepal has a long way to go before launching such a currency, it has initiated a study for potentially introducing digital currency in the future.
The Nepal Rastra Bank initiated the study in line with the Monetary Policy for the current fiscal year 2021-22 which states that a feasibility study for a Central Bank Digital Currency in Nepal will be conducted in the context of ongoing worldwide studies regarding the usage and feasibility of digital currency.
“A task force headed by a bank director is working on preparing a concept note on the feasibility of introducing central bank digital currency in Nepal,” said Revati Prasad Nepal, executive director at the currency management department of the central bank. “We are expecting the report of the taskforce within the next two weeks.”