The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on September 10 launched a pilot project for the tokenisation of corporate bonds under its Demat 2.0 initiative, marking a step towards building a more integrated and programmable securities market infrastructure.
Three issuers have already issued tokenised corporate bonds under the pilot over the past few days, SEBI Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said at the Global Fintech Fest 2026. The initiative is being led by depositories CDSL and NSDL and supported by stock exchanges BSE, MSEI and NSE, along with banks, issuers, investors, NPCI and regulators.
The pilot will explore whether distributed ledger technology can bring the security and settlement legs of a transaction closer together, enable faster settlement and automate parts of asset servicing.
“The broader significance is that we are exploring a market architecture where securities, settlement and servicing can become more integrated and programmable,” Pandey said.
The project combines tokenised securities with digital settlement assets through the central bank digital currency (CBDC) and smart-contract functionality, while continuing to build on India's existing market infrastructure. A key focus, Pandey said, is to preserve legal certainty around ownership even as the market experiments with new technology and infrastructure.