Internationalising the rupee
the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released the Report of the Inter-Departmental Group on Internationalization of the Rupee. RBI took pains to ensure that people knew that “(T)he report and its recommendations reflect the views of the IDG and do not in any way reflect the official position of the Reserve Bank of India. The recommendations of the report will be examined for implementation.” Nonetheless, the report was certainly timely given the ongoing buzz about rupee invoicing with various countries, most notably, of course, Russia. Since the Ukraine invasion and resulting sanctions, many countries have recognised that they need to broaden their range of invoicing and settlement processes to protect against the risk of ever falling afoul of the Big Daddy of international finance. Thus, it was a prudent move to explore the alternatives, amongst which would be “internationalising” the rupee. The report has recognized that internationalisation is an ongoing process and, though we are still