The RBI's annual report for 2025-26 records that certificates of deposit were the first instrument issued in tokenised form on its Unified Markets Interface, settled in wholesale CBDC. It also reports programmable CBDC pilots in government subsidy payments, offline CBDC testing and expanded wholesale pilots. For 2026-27 the RBI plans more tokenisation pilots and bilateral cross-border CBDC pilots.
Why it matters: The RBI is building its own tokenisation rails and settlement asset, which makes wholesale CBDC, not stablecoins, India's answer to on-chain money.
The RBI launched a CBDC and Asset Tokenisation (CAT) Sandbox and the Unified Markets Interface (UMI) at the Global Fintech Fest 2025. Under UMI, certificates of deposit were the first instrument issued in tokenised form and settled through wholesale CBDC (para VI.55).
Retail CBDC users can now send programmable money to other individuals, and government agencies ran direct benefit transfer pilots using programmable CBDC (para VI.53). Chapter I names food subsidy payments in Gujarat, Puducherry and Chandigarh (para I.23).
Offline CBDC is being tested over NFC and SMS, and wholesale pilots in government securities and interbank borrowing were expanded (para VI.54).
The agenda for 2026-27 includes more tokenisation pilots settled in CBDC with more participants, a framework for testing products in the CAT sandbox, and a bilateral or multilateral cross-border CBDC pilot (para VI.67). Chapter I adds that the RBI signed a memorandum of understanding on digital asset collaboration with MAS and held talks with MAS and the UAE central bank on a cross-border CBDC pilot (para I.23).
Implications
This is the RBI’s own account of its tokenisation stack: a market interface it built, and a settlement asset it issues. Banks and market infrastructure institutions that want to tokenise in India will do it on this infrastructure, and the corporate bond pilot launched in September already connects to UMI.
The approach leaves little room for private settlement assets. The report discusses CBDC throughout and does not discuss stablecoins as a settlement option for tokenised assets.
Elsewhere in Asia
Hong Kong and Singapore are also piloting tokenised settlement with central bank money or tokenised deposits, but both are building licensing regimes for stablecoins alongside: Hong Kong granted its first issuer licences in April and Singapore is consulting on its law. The RBI report has no equivalent.
What to watch
The next instruments on UMI after certificates of deposit and corporate bonds, and the cross-border CBDC pilot with Singapore or the UAE.
This rule so far
: RBI annual report records the first tokenised certificates of deposit settled in wholesale CBDC