CBDCs can “kill” private crypto: India's RBI deputy governor to IMF

cointelegraph.com:

In discussion with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), T Rabi Sankar, the deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), reflected an anti-crypto stance as he spoke about India’s potential to disrupt the crypto and blockchain ecosystem. 

Rabi Sankar started the conversation by highlighting the success of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), India’s in-house fiat-based peer-to-peer payments system — which has seen an average adoption and transaction growth of 160% per anum over the last five years.

“One of the reasons it is so successful is because it’s simple,” he added while comparing UPI’s growth with blockchain technology. According to Rabi Sankar:

However, the RBI official confirmed that a large population in India still lacks access to UPI-based banking due to the unavailability of smartphones. To counter this, the Indian government is working on offline payment platforms, some of which have started rolling out to the masses.

June 2 at 7:00am ET // At the Frontier: India's Digital Payment System and Beyond will explore the latest developments in digital payments with a focus on lessons from India as well as future with a significant role for Central Bank Digital Currencies. https://t.co/ZSj7i15fBG pic.twitter.com/X6cVyHewEs

Rabi Sankar also stated that banks will remain crucial for providing liquidity services to the general public in India, warning that technology is merely a tool and cannot be used to create currencies:

He further stated that RBI does not believe that stablecoins, like Tether (USDT), should be accepted blindly as 1-to-1 fiat pegged currencies. Speaking about the advantages of a digital rupee, Rabi Sankar said:

Related: India to roll out CBDC using a graded approach: RBI Annual Report

On May 28,