Good morning. It's Friday, and Indian markets closed out a choppy week on steadier footing even as oil holds stubbornly above the $100 mark. Away from the trading floor, it was also a busy one for regulators, dealmakers and diplomats alike.
Here is what is worth your time today.
In today's newsletter: RBI and SEBI switch on India's first tokenised corporate bond pilot.
Sensex 74,902.59 ▲ 0.19% |
Nifty 50 23,477.80 ▲ 0.20% |
USD/INR 95.29 ▲ 0.13% |
Brent Crude $102.10 ▲ 1.2% |
Indian benchmarks snapped a three-day losing streak, with bank stocks doing the heavy lifting even as Brent crude held above the $100 mark for a second straight session.
RBI and SEBI launch India's first tokenised corporate bond pilot
On Thursday, RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra and SEBI Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey launched India's first tokenised corporate bond pilot at the Global Fintech Fest, using blockchain and the central bank's digital currency to issue, hold, trade and settle corporate bonds.
Three issuers have already tested the rails with real money. State-run REC raised ₹500 crore from 18 investors on September 7, L&T raised another ₹500 crore from four investors two days later, and IIFL added ₹25 crore, taking the pilot's total to ₹1,025 crore in under a week.
SEBI is billing the broader push as "Demat 2.0," and the plan is for the framework to eventually stretch beyond bonds to stocks, mutual fund units and electronic gold receipts, changing how Indian investors hold and trade nearly every kind of paper asset.
This pilot is tiny in rupee terms, just over a thousand crore so far, but it is a live test of whether India's debt and equity plumbing can eventually run on blockchain rails instead of the banking system's usual settlement cycle. If it scales, the payoff is trades that settle in minutes rather than days, at a fraction of the cost.
Nobody waited for a finished rulebook before jumping in. REC, L&T and IIFL are already settling real money through the pilot, which means the country's biggest bond issuers are quietly shaping the standard for tokenised debt in India before smaller companies even get a seat at the table.
Breaking.exe
Jio listing looms. Telecom operators are weighing fresh tariff hikes over the next two quarters, with Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea looking to shore up returns ahead of heavy capital spending and Jio's own planned listing. |
UPI gets sharper. RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra unveiled new UPI features including tap-to-pay at store terminals and an AI-powered customer support tool, letting users make PIN-less payments of up to ₹5,000. |
BharatPe goes flexible. Fintech firm BharatPe unveiled BharatPe Flex, a new consumer credit product built around Credit Line on UPI, fronted by a brand campaign starring cricketer Rohit Sharma. |
Pangaea Revisited
Putin lands in Delhi. Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in New Delhi for a three-day visit ahead of the BRICS summit, his first in-person appearance at the grouping since the war in Ukraine began, with bilateral talks with PM Modi expected to touch trade, energy and possible new defence deals. |
Pakistan's march standoff. Islamabad's federal government moved to legally block a planned September 27 march by Imran Khan's PTI party, which says it aims to bring two million supporters to the capital demanding his release. |
Bangladesh's measles crisis. A measles outbreak in Bangladesh has produced nearly 1,000 suspected or confirmed deaths since March, the worst such outbreak in the country's history. |
Also, Also, Also
Relief for Class 6. The Supreme Court asked CBSE to consider exempting the current Class 6 batch from its new three-language policy this year, citing shortages of teachers and textbooks, and deferred further hearing to September 17. |
India into the final. Shafali Verma's 64 and Deepti Sharma's three-wicket haul powered India Women past Bangladesh by 40 runs in the Women's Asia Cup semi-final, sending them into a record tenth final. |
Global brands bet big. Top executives from Coca-Cola, Mondelez, Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser called India one of their strongest long-term growth markets at a global consumer staples conference, citing resilient demand and rising premiumisation. |