Overview
- Multiple news outlets report that REC will issue tokenised corporate bonds worth under ₹5 billion in September as a controlled pilot open only to a select group of investors.
- Participants will need two digital accounts: a wholesale CBDC wallet provided by a bank to hold the e‑rupee and a new DEMAT 2.0 securities wallet that records bond holdings on a distributed ledger.
- The bonds will carry an initial three‑month lock‑in with exchanges expected to establish a secondary market by December so eligible holders can trade after the lock‑in.
- Regulators plan to use the pilot to test delivery‑versus‑payment on‑chain plus smart contracts for automated coupon payments so settlement could move from T+2 toward near real‑time, reducing counterparty and collateral frictions.
- The trial builds on RBI wholesale CBDC pilots since 2022 and prior SEBI and depository DLT work; officials have kept details confidential and expect the experiment to run several months to fully stress‑test operations.