“The debt public issuances are barely at 1+% of the overall corporate bond issuance market”
FinTech BizNews Service
Mumbai, October 29, 2025: Vishal Goenka, Co-Founder, IndiaBonds has reflected upon the consultation paper, issued by the SEBI, proposing to allow debt issuers to offer incentives to select investor categories
Vishal Goenka explains: “SEBI’s consultation paper is very welcome and a step further in encouraging participation of retail investors in the country’s fast growing bond markets. As per the paper, debt public issuances fell from INR 19,168 Crs in FY 2023-24 to INR 8,149 Crs in FY 2024-25 (Source: SEBI annual report). Furthermore, private placement of corporate bonds stood at INR 4,66,356 Crs in 1H FY 25-26 versus public issuances of just INR 4,998 Crs (Apr-Aug’25) implying that debt public issuances are barely at 1+% of the overall corporate bond issuance market. (Source: SEBI)
The paper suggests that such incentives would be at total discretion of the issuers and disclosed in the offer document. Proposed categories for incentives could include senior citizens, women and retail in general. A parallel is also drawn with other market instruments such as FDs, where issuers are allowed to give higher rates for certain categories of investors. Importantly as guardrails it is mentioned that if the bond were to be subsequently sold, the new owner may not enjoy the same benefits.
The corporate bond market continues to see accelerated adaptation by retail. Number of trades in secondary corporate bond market already reached 11.14 lacs in just 6 months in 1HFY25-26 as compared with 11.91 lac trades in the whole of FY24-25 (Source: SEBI). If the regulation were to come, it should significantly boost participation from retail in public debt issues and also encourage corporate treasuries to get a larger diversified pool for capital raising.”
