SEBI Unveils Demat 2.0 Pilot for Tokenized Corporate Bonds

India's Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has launched the Demat 2.0 pilot, which allows corporate bonds to be issued as digital tokens on distributed-ledger infrastructure.

The initiative is part of SEBI's effort to modernize India's corporate debt market.

Under the pilot, a corporate bond is issued as a native digital token on a private, permissioned distributed ledger operated by India's depositories.

The token keeps the same ISIN, issuer obligations, coupon, maturity, covenants, rating, and investor rights as a conventional bond, while the bond's key terms are encoded into a smart contract.