India's SEBI and RBI launch Demat 2.0 pilot for tokenized corporate bonds with $116M already issued, expanding regulated RWA infrastructure.
Regulation & Gov ·
India's financial regulators have inaugurated Demat 2.0, a pilot system for issuing and trading corporate bonds as digital tokens within the country's regulated securities framework. Three companies have already released tokenized bonds totaling ₹1,025 crore ($116 million), with REC Limited launching the first offering of ₹500 crore on September 7, followed by Larsen & Toubro with an equivalent amount and IIFL with ₹25 crore.
The infrastructure connects bond issuance on a distributed ledger to India's existing depository system and integrates with the RBI's wholesale digital rupee through a unified market interface. A key feature is atomic settlement—simultaneous finalization of securities transfer and cash payment—which compresses funding timelines from the traditional two-to-three-day window to same-day completion. Smart contracts automate coupon distributions and redemptions directly to investors' central-bank digital currency wallets, while participants use their current demat accounts rather than separate blockchain wallets.
Rollout is planned in three stages, beginning with institutional corporate bond issuance. Future phases will enable secondary-market trading and retail participation, then potentially extend tokenization to other regulated financial instruments. The system remains private and permissioned, with nodes operated by depositories and stock exchanges, keeping securities markets within India's existing regulatory perimeter rather than migrating them to public blockchains.