Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recruited the Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani to head up an advisory panel on the development of digital payments.
India, the third biggest economy in Asia, has taken a lead on the use of digital cash and it is forecast that digital payments will grow five-fold more than $1 trillion by 2023 according to Credit Suisse.
The five-member panel, which also includes a forrmer RBI deputy governor, will be expected to identify ways that digital payments can be used to expand financial inclusion in the country and suggest meausures to "strengthen the safety and security of digital payments" stated the central bank.
It is not the first time that Infosys head Nilekani has worked with the RBI having previously chaired a panel that oversaw India's biometric ID initiative known as Aadhaar.
While the central bank has been keen to push the use of digital payments, it has been less enthused about the use of cryptocurrencies, proposing a ban on the likes of bitcoin.
And in 2018 the RBI took the unusual step of formally objecting to the government's proposal for payment systems to be regulated by a separate body outside of the central bank's jurisidiction.
In addition to the digital payments panel, the RBI also issued guidelines on the use of tokenisation which is typically used to enhance safety in contactless payments by masking sensitive card data.