Catenaa, Thursday, September 17, 2026- Three Indian companies have raised 10.25 billion rupees, or about $107.2 million, through tokenized corporate bonds under a pilot that links distributed-ledger securities with India’s wholesale central bank digital currency.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India said its Demat 2.0 pilot uses distributed ledger technology to issue, hold and settle corporate bonds.
REC Ltd. became the first issuer on September 7, raising 5 billion rupees, or about $52.3 million, from 18 investors.
Larsen & Toubro Ltd. followed on September 9 with another 5 billion rupees from four investors.
IIFL raised 250 million rupees, or about $2.6 million, from a single investor the same day.
Under the pilot, corporate bonds are recorded as native digital tokens on a distributed ledger operated by India’s securities depositories.
The system is connected to the Reserve Bank of India’s wholesale central bank digital currency through the central bank’s Unified Market Interface.
That connection allows the securities and cash sides of a transaction to settle simultaneously.
Such delivery-versus-payment settlement can reduce the risk created when securities and funds move separately.
SEBI said issuers could also receive proceeds on the same day as bidding, compared with the two to three days typically required under the existing process.
Authorized institutions can view bondholder information on the shared ledger, while interest and principal payments can be transferred to investors’ CBDC wallets when they become due.
The regulator said the system is intended to make corporate bond issuance, settlement and servicing faster and less prone to errors.
The pilot does not create a new legal category of securities.
SEBI said tokenized bonds issued through Demat 2.0 retain the same International Securities Identification Number, or ISIN, as their conventional dematerialized counterparts.
Issuer obligations, coupon rates, maturities, covenants, ratings and investor rights also remain unchanged.
The distinction lies largely in the infrastructure used to record ownership and settle transactions.
That approach allows India to test blockchain-style securities infrastructure without altering the economic or legal characteristics of the underlying bonds.
The program is being introduced in three stages.
The first phase is limited to institutional issuance.
Secondary-market trading is expected to be introduced later, followed by broader investor access under SEBI’s Regulatory Sandbox.
The project places India among a growing number of major financial markets testing tokenized real-world assets and central bank digital currencies for securities settlement.
Tokenization supporters argue that shared ledgers could reduce reconciliation requirements, shorten settlement periods and automate parts of securities administration.
The Demat 2.0 pilot is particularly notable because it links tokenized securities directly with central bank money.
That structure allows both sides of a bond transaction to settle on coordinated digital infrastructure rather than relying on separate payment and securities systems.
The initial 10.25 billion rupees raised by REC, L&T and IIFL gives SEBI a live test of that model before the system expands to secondary trading and potentially retail investors.
