NPCI India Scouting for Blockchain Innovator to Modernize Payment Ecosystem

Revealed: 4 September 2023, 7:56 am Up to date: 04 Sep 2023, 8:03 am

The Nationwide Funds Company of India (NPCI) is in search of a Head of Blockchain, per a job posting on LinkedIn.

An initiative of the Reserve Financial institution of India (RBI) and the Indian Banks’ Affiliation (IBA), the NPCI manages India’s Unified Funds Interface (UPI). Because the nation’s instantaneous fee system, UPI facilitates interbank peer-to-peer and person-to-merchant transactions through cell units.

The job description requires candidates to carry a Bachelor of Engineering diploma and have not less than 16 years of expertise. Moreover, they need to have a minimal of six years’ expertise in creating, adopting, and implementing blockchain know-how at a monetary companies organisation.

The perfect candidate also needs to have earlier expertise engaged on not less than two pilot blockchain tasks and an in-depth understanding of a number of blockchain platforms.

Job tasks for the Head of Blockchain position embrace figuring out avenues the place blockchain-driven options can be utilized, supporting a blockchain-based community, and proudly owning the whole implementation lifecycle.

On the time of writing, the job has acquired 587 functions. 

India’s Crypto Imaginative and prescient

This job posting comes as India is getting ready to launch its central financial institution digital foreign money (CBDC) at a nationwide stage by the tip of this yr. 

Final yr, the nation piloted two CBDC tasks. The primary, referred to as CBDC-W for wholesale use, started on November 1 with 9 taking part banks. The second – CBDC-R for the non-public sector and Indian residents – was launched on December 1 in 4 cities: Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, and Bhubaneswar.

4 banks have been initially concerned within the CBDC-R, together with the State Financial institution of India, ICICI Financial institution, Sure Financial institution, and IDFC First Financial institution. The CBDC-R pilot has since expanded to fifteen cities.

In line with a current Reuters report, RBI Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar mentioned that the financial institution is concentrating on 1 million CBDC transactions per day by the tip of this yr. 

As of June 2023, 1.3 million clients and 300,000 retailers are utilizing the digital foreign money.

The central financial institution goals to implement CBDC not solely as a fee software however as a type of digital foreign money. 

Sankar emphasised the necessity for a definite technique to encourage CBDC adoption, clarifying that there have been no plans to supply incentives for CBDC use and that it wasn’t in competitors with UPI.