From niche to mainstream: How India's bond market reinvented itself over the last 10 years

India's bond market has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past decade, evolving from a largely institutional and opaque market into a more transparent, accessible and globally integrated ecosystem.

A series of regulatory reforms by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), coupled with technological advancements and India's inclusion in a key global bond index, have laid the foundation for what market participants believe could be the next phase of rapid growth.

The numbers tell the story. Total bond issuances have nearly tripled over the last decade, rising from ₹4.07 lakh crore in 2014 to ₹11.60 lakh crore in 2025, according to data shared by Grip Invest.


Listed bond issuances on the BSE and the NSE also expanded significantly, climbing from ₹3.61 lakh crore to ₹9.22 lakh crore during the same period.

The momentum accelerated after the pandemic. Total issuances jumped 31% between 2022 and 2023, increasing from ₹7.75 lakh crore to ₹10.16 lakh crore, supported by stable interest rates, improving credit sentiment and a series of structural reforms. FY25 further marked a milestone with fresh bond issuances touching a record ₹9.9 trillion.

According to industry experts, the evolution of India's bond market has been driven not by a single event but by a sequence of carefully calibrated reforms that have steadily expanded participation, improved transparency and strengthened investor confidence.

"If I had to mark the defining milestones, I would point to a steady sequence of regulatory reforms that progressively removed the barriers around the Indian bond market," said Aditi Mittal, Co-Founder of IndiaBonds.

Mittal noted that the introduction of the Electronic Book Provider (EBP) platform in 2016 improved transparency in private placements through better price discovery, while the Request for Quote (RFQ) platform—introduced for institutional investors in 2020 and extended to retail investors through brokers in January 2023—helped formalise secondary market trading.

She believes one of the most significant shifts came from reducing the minimum investment threshold for corporate bonds.

"SEBI's reduction of the minimum face value, first from ₹10 lakh to ₹1 lakh in 2022 and then to ₹10,000 in 2024, was transformative; it took an asset class priced for institutions and brought it within reach of the non-institutional investor," Mittal said.

Nikhil Aggarwal, Founder & Group CEO, Grip Invest echoed this view, describing democratisation as one of the defining milestones of the decade.

"In two moves—October 2022 and June 2023—SEBI reduced the minimum investment in corporate bonds from ₹10 lakh to ₹10,000, with public bonds accessible at ₹1,000. That one reform changed the character of who can participate," he said.

Regulation builds trust

Beyond accessibility, experts believe regulation has played an equally important role in building investor confidence.

Mittal described SEBI's Online Bond Platform Provider (OBPP) framework, introduced in November 2022, as the single most important milestone in the market's evolution.

"For the first time, there was a dedicated regulatory category for online bond platforms, with clear obligations on disclosure, conduct, and investor protection. That framework gave retail investors something they never had before in this market: trust backed by regulation," she said.

Aggarwal added that SEBI has consistently strengthened the market's infrastructure through reforms such as electronic bidding platforms, RFQ systems, mandatory credit-rating disclosures and, more recently, Bond Central, launched in February 2025 to provide investors with a single public repository of corporate bond data.

"These are not cosmetic changes; they directly address the opacity that held the market back," he said.

Global validation

India's inclusion in the JP Morgan Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets (GBI-EM) from June 2024 marked another watershed moment for the country's debt markets.

Mittal of IndiaBonds believes the move signalled that India's bond market had matured not only domestically but also in the eyes of international investors.

Aggarwal of Grip Invest highlighted the significance of the inclusion, noting that India entered the index with a maximum weight of 10%, covering 23 government securities worth about $330 billion in notional value. The inclusion is expected to attract nearly $25 billion in passive inflows over the phased implementation period.

"This put India on the radar of every major global fixed-income allocator—a validation that would have been unthinkable a decade ago," he said.

The next growth phase

Despite the progress, experts argue that India's corporate bond market remains underpenetrated compared with global peers, leaving ample room for future expansion.

Aggarwal pointed out that India's corporate bond market is equivalent to only 18-20% of GDP, significantly below the 70% or more seen in developed economies.

Quoting estimates by CRISIL, he said the market could more than double in size to ₹100-120 trillion by 2030, suggesting that the biggest milestones may still lie ahead.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views, and opinions given by experts are their own. These do not represent the views of the Economic Times)