Indian REC Limited issues $59 million tokenized bond

REC Limited, a state-owned lender to the power sector, has issued a ₹5 billion ($59 million) tokenized bond as part of a distributed ledger pilot and sandbox previously announced by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

The company said the initial plan was for a ₹1 billion issuance, but after book building resulted in subscriptions of almost eight times the figure, it took advantage of the green shoe option to issue the full ₹5 billion. Some of India’s largest institutions invested in the bond, including HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank.

The 7.30% per annum bond has a tenor of one year and nine months. Bidding for the private placement took place on the National Stock Exchange’s (NSE’s) EBP platform, and the bond is listed on both NSE and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). There’s a new type of securities account to reflect DLT holdings, a DEMAT 2.0 wallet provided by depositories, according to Reuters and the Business Standard.

Earlier this year Qatar National Bank (QNB) launched its first-ever native blockchain enabled digital bond issuance, raising $500 million in what is being described as the largest transaction of its kind by a financial institution in the Middle East and Africa. The digital bond issuance was powered by HSBC Orion Blockchain solution. HSBC Orion is the number 1 platform globally for digital bond volume in 2025 to date and the only to have successfully supported digital bonds for issuers in the region, in addition to the world’s largest digital bond issued in Hong Kong earlier this month.