India is preparing to issue its first tokenized corporate bond as early as September 2026 in a pilot overseen by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the country’s securities regulator. The six- to nine-month project will test faster settlement, automated coupon payments and integration with the Reserve Bank of India’s wholesale e-rupee, while building on existing depository infrastructure rather than creating a new exchange. India’s corporate bond market exceeds ₹60 trillion, or roughly $700 billion, in outstanding volume, up from about ₹17.5 trillion in 2015. The pilot will explore delivery-versus-payment, or simultaneous on-chain transfer of securities and cash, with the aim of moving beyond the current T+2 settlement cycle. Annual corporate bond issuance reached approximately ₹9.11 trillion in FY26. The initiative follows a 2021 SEBI circular requiring NSDL and CDSL to deploy distributed ledger technology for monitoring secured debentures. SEBI Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey first outlined the tokenization plan in May 2026 at the CareEdge Debt Market Summit. Its proposed connection to the RBI’s e-rupee wholesale central bank digital currency pilot, launched in late 2022 for government securities settlement among a small group of banks, could expand the digital currency’s use to corporate bonds.