India's First Tokenised Corporate Bond Issued Under SEBI's Demat 2.0 Pilot

15 September 2026National

The Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India facilitated India's first tokenised corporate bond issuance under the SEBI Demat 2.0 pilot on 11 September 2026, with IIFL Finance as the issuer. Demat 2.0, a joint SEBI-RBI initiative unveiled at the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai on 10 September, records bonds as digital tokens on a distributed ledger while ownership stays with the depositories NSDL and CDSL. Settlement is linked to the RBI's wholesale CBDC (e-Rupee), enabling atomic settlement and same-day transfer against the usual two to three days. REC Limited and L&T raised Rs 500 crore each earlier, taking the pilot to Rs 1,025 crore.

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SEBI was set up in 1988 and given statutory status by the SEBI Act, 1992; it is headquartered in Mumbai | India's two depositories are NSDL (1996) and CDSL (1999), regulated under the Depositories Act, 1996 | The RBI launched its wholesale CBDC pilot on 1 November 2022 and the retail e-Rupee pilot on 1 December 2022

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