India's regulators push for growth in corporate bond index derivatives trading

Mumbai: India's financial sector regulators are working together on policies to encourage corporate bond index derivatives trading.

"Corporate bond index derivatives trading is another frontier... good discussions are ongoing between Sebi and RBI, and we are hopeful that we will see progress soon," Sebi whole-time member Ananth Narayan said at an event organised by an industry body on corporate bonds.

"We need to popularise trading in corporate bonds. Today, secondary bond volumes are about ₹1.4 lakh crore a month. Equity markets trade around that much in a single day. If we can make bond trading more comparable to equity trading - in settlement, platforms, even trading culture - we might well see this investment class take off," Narayan said.


Outstanding corporate bonds rose from ₹17.5 trillion at the end of FY15 to ₹53.6 trillion as of March 2025, as per Sebi data.