Overview
- The pilot, reported on Monday, Aug. 24, names state‑owned power financier REC as the issuer of a tokenised bond offering worth under 5 billion rupees that is set to launch in September.
- The Reserve Bank of India’s wholesale central bank digital currency will serve as the cash leg while securities will be recorded on a new DEMAT 2.0 ledger, forcing participants to hold both a wholesale CBDC wallet from a bank and an electronic securities wallet.
- Access to the initial offering will be limited to a select group of investors and the bonds will carry a three‑month lock‑in after which exchanges are expected to build a secondary market by December.
- Regulators say the experiment will test delivery‑versus‑payment settlement, automated coupon and recordkeeping functions on distributed ledger technology to try to cut the current T+2 settlement delay and lower reconciliation risk.
- SEBI and the RBI are coordinating the controlled rollout and the pilot keeps tokenised, regulated securities separate from private cryptocurrencies while creating new technical rules that will affect banks, depositories and investors if the tests succeed.