On Tuesday, India’s largest software exporter, TCS, announced a solution to facilitate its rollout and use as major central banks struggle to launch digital currencies. Tata Group of companies has enhanced its blockchain solutions platform, Quartz, to enable central and commercial banks to support the entire lifecycle of central bank digital currency (CBDC) issuance, bookkeeping and transactions.

This capability is fundamental to TCS, which sees the BFSI (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance) segment as its largest vertical, Vivekanand Ramgopal, the company’s president for banking, financial services and insurance products and platforms, told PTI.

Without giving any opportunity, Ramgopal said it was strategically “very important” to have a CBDC solution, adding that it was already working with multiple stakeholders in the system.

Ramgopal said the firm sees a wholesale CBDC as having clear advantages over a retail CBDC and could be the first to roll out in many countries. The RBI, which is mandated to launch a CBDC in FY23, is also considering the introduction of a wholesale CBDC first due to its advantages.

We should expect some countries to progress and launch their CBDCs in 2023, Ramgopal said, adding that the lag between wholesale and retail would not be too long. He said the TCS solution could support wholesale and retail use cases, stressing that CBDC will be adopted shortly after its launch.

The solution will comply with all regulations regarding privacy, Ramgopal said, adding that it can be “consciously programmed” to achieve anonymity, especially for small transactions.