Reserve Bank of India
The RBI announced the Unified Markets Interface, a market infrastructure to tokenise financial assets and settle them in wholesale CBDC, and used it first for tokenised certificates of deposit.
- Status
- Live
- Announced
- (announcement)
- Stage
- Pilot
- Chain or network
- Unified Markets Interface (RBI)
- Next review
Scorecard
As of the review on . Changes since the previous review are marked. How pilots are scored
| Ledger | Unknown |
|---|---|
| Settlement | CBDC on the ledger |
| Access | Whitelisted institutions or investors |
| Legal standing | Unclear |
| Scale | Repeat |
Review history
Live Pilot
Annual report 2025-26 says a pilot for issuing and trading tokenised certificates of deposit on UMI, settled in wholesale CBDC, has commenced. The RBI has named no participants and published no volumes. Ledger and legal status are open; an RBI description of the platform and of the token's legal standing would settle them.
Evidence: rbi.org.in, rbi.org.in, rbi.org.in
Live Pilot
The Governor cited certificates of deposit issued through UMI in his September 2026 keynote, and UMI now also connects the Demat 2.0 corporate bond pilot to wholesale CBDC. Still no RBI figures, participant list or ledger description.
Evidence: rbi.org.in, sebi.gov.in
What was announced
At the Global Fintech Fest on 8 October 2025, RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra announced the Unified Markets Interface (UMI), which he called a next-generation financial market infrastructure able to tokenise financial assets and settle them in wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC). The speech named no instrument or participant and set no dates. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) later recorded that certificates of deposit (CDs), short-term deposit instruments that banks issue to raise funds, were the first instrument issued on UMI.
How it works
Per the 2025-26 annual report (para V.10), the pilot covers issuance and trading of CDs in tokenised form on UMI, using tokenisation and distributed ledger technology (DLT), with settlement in wholesale CBDC. settlement is therefore cbdc. The RBI has not described the ledger, its operator or node structure, so ledger is unknown. It has not named the banks, but issuance and trading imply several institutional participants, so access is whitelisted. It has not said whether the token is the legal record of the CD or mirrors a depository record, so legal is unclear.
Record so far
The RBI’s accounts are brief. The annual report says the pilot “has commenced” (para V.10) and that CDs were the first UMI instrument (para VI.55). The RBI’s e₹ FAQ lists tokenised CD issuance and settlement as a wholesale CBDC use case. In his September 2026 keynote the Governor referred to CDs issued through UMI, plural, which supports scale: repeat. The RBI’s plan for 2026-27 is more tokenisation pilots with more participants (para VI.67).
UMI has since become the link between the depositories’ Demat 2.0 ledger and wholesale CBDC for tokenised corporate bonds, tracked in its own entry.
The RBI has not published a single volume, issuer or participant for the CD pilot. Press reports give figures, but none are RBI statements, and this entry does not use them.
What to watch
An RBI publication naming participants and volumes. A description of the UMI ledger and of the CD token’s legal standing, which would settle two open rubric values. The next instrument after CDs and corporate bonds.