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India Launches Digital Rupee Settlement for Bonds
The pilot has settled ₹1,025 crore in three transactions and aims to cut settlement delays from two to three days.
On Wednesday, Larsen and Toubro completed a 5 billion rupee tokenized bond issuance, marking the second transaction in India's Demat 2.0 pilot program for corporate bond settlement.
Demat 2.0 connects the bond ledger to the RBI's wholesale central bank digital currency through the Unified Market Interface, enabling atomic settlement where security delivery and payment occur simultaneously.
India has issued approximately $116 million in tokenized corporate bonds across three transactions since the pilot began, with combined participation from 23 investors across all deals.
Issuers can now receive payment on the bidding day, replacing a previous process requiring two to three days for funds to reach them after bidding.
SEBI Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey and RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra jointly presented the pilot, with regulators planning to use data from secondary-trading and retail phases to guide any broader expansion.