Comment by rvz
3 years ago
> India already has the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) [0]. Additionally, I think fears of this turning into a CBDC are overblown.
Yet, India is already working on E-RUPI [0] which is a CBDC on top of UPI by the Reserve Bank of India, also shown in the same Wikipedia link you just used. Eventually, FedNow will just be the rails for a US dollar CBDC.
The next time a protest happens in India after their government does something extremely unpopular, you'll see why CBDCs are a nightmare not to be ignored. This is why governments around the world are working with many central banks with pilot schemes to test them out and eventually roll their own.
> Like a Zelle or Venmo, but government backed!
Look where that went for Zelle. [1] A vehicle for rampant fraud on the system.
[0] https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/what-is-e-rupi-d...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/business/payments-fraud-z...
> Eventually, FedNow will just be the rails for a US dollar CBDC
This is unfounded. FedNow is a faster classical payment rail. CBDCs involve the central bank taking on a customer-facing role. The Fed has no desire, nor frankly basis in law, to do that. The only reason the two are linked is crypto (a) prompted the first serious discussion about American payments modernization and (b) promoters are using it as a thread by which to hang onto a dream of mainstream crypto.
The central bank digital currency concept has little to do with FedNow. It's denominated in dollars, and is cleared by all parties keeping ledgers which are compared if they differ. But between the crypto people and some right-wing conspiracy mongers, the two are being connected in some social media.