India's securities regulator SEBI and the Reserve Bank of India have launched Demat 2.0, a pilot program to issue and settle corporate bonds as digital tokens on a permissioned distributed ledger. The initiative targets the country's $620 billion corporate bond market.
Depositories NSDL and CDSL operate the DLT network, managing controlled access and regulatory compliance. Transactions settle via the RBI's wholesale digital rupee—India's central bank digital currency—with smart contracts automating atomic settlement so token transfer and CBDC payment occur simultaneously.
Three institutional issuers have participated in the pilot, raising approximately $107 million: REC, Larsen & Toubro, and IIFL Finance.
SEBI and the RBI plan to introduce secondary trading and retail access in later stages, potentially broadening participation beyond the institutional segment.
The program positions India as a player in real-world asset tokenization and demonstrates how sovereign-backed digital currencies can underpin large-scale DLT-based settlement—a permissioned alternative to stablecoin-based models in other jurisdictions.
