India adopts blockchain and digital rupee for corporate bond settlement
India just rolled out blockchain tech and the RBI's digital rupee to settle corporate bond deals, shaking up its massive $620 billion corporate bond market.
With SEBI's Demat 2.0 pilot launched this September, companies can now issue bonds as digital tokens on a distributed ledger run by regulated market institutions.
Big names like REC and L&T have already raised ₹500 crore each, while IIFL Finance joined in with ₹25 crore.
Tokenized bonds settle via RBI interface
These tokenized bonds still have familiar features, fixed interest rates and maturity dates, but settlements now happen through RBI's Unified Market Interface, cutting down risk.
Smart contracts can be used for things like interest payments and redemptions.
Next up: secondary trading and maybe even retail investors, making finance more transparent and accessible.