Explore the best 10 places to buy bonds in India and begin investing in this safer and more predictable way of growing your money. Thanks to online bond platforms, it’s simpler than ever to create a mix of bonds in your investment portfolio.
The Context
Gentlemen prefer bonds —Andrew Mellon
Bonds are a wise choice for a diversified portfolio and excellent tools for effectively protecting one’s cash.
It’s simply because the income expected out of bonds is predictable. They are considered less risky than stocks but the term less risky in the investment world implies restricted returns as well. This asset class usually generates returns in two different ways – firstly through the interest rate that is paid at periodic intervals and secondly by re-selling in secondary markets at a higher value just like stocks.
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Not too long ago, investing in bonds was a complicated feat for a retail investor. This was primarily because of substantial capital requirements and limitations of rapidly executing transactions. Thanks to technological advancements and the growing market competition — purchasing bonds is now easier than ever through digital bond platforms.
Bond platforms come under RBI and SEBI regulations and they house large inventories of Bonds offered by issuing entities. Bond investing is also possible through your stock broker account, but the information provided is often limited to a few parameters.
This usually limits curious investors to perform due diligence and research on their investments.
Most bond platforms in India offer a wide spread of bonds issued by public and private sector entities. Among others, the fine selections are offered across maturities, credit ratings, tax treatments, and issuer categories.
Just like your stock trading platform, they offer nice bits of information like current market price, and coupon rates along with basic estimations like the expected cash flow over the holding tenure. Financially savvy, DIY investors are already intrigued by bond platforms, which is why you rarely see showy marketing and advertising for these products.
Some platforms also possess minimum investment requirements that are moderately smaller but can still run between 1-2 lakhs. This discourages many investors who are just starting out investing with small financial portfolios.
Here is our list of the top 10 bond marketplaces. This list is intended to assist you in your search for the best bonds to suit the needs of your all-weather portfolio.
Note- This is not investment advice or an endorsement for any specific platform.
1. WintWealth
WintWealth was established in 2020, making it a relatively new brand in the industry. The company creates aggregated debt instruments for SIP-style investments, which are low-risk and have significant yields.
Earlier, such investment opportunities were usually available to high-net-worth individuals (HNIs). WintWealth claims to provide a SEBI-regulated platform for retail investors to invest in “covered bonds”, which are protected from bankruptcy.
WintWealth (previously known as GrowFix), started offering a fixed interest rate (~10-11%) on loans with underlying assets such as gold or vehicles. Today, the startup boasts eight asset classes, with another few in the making. The company has recently collaborated with top fin-influencers from social media via an exclusive round for an undisclosed amount.
The known names include Pranjal Kamra (Finology), Sharique (Marketfeed ), Rachna Ranade (CA), and 11 others. WintWealth also boasts investments from leading financial firms like Zerodha (via Rainmatter).
Rainmatter is a financial technology-focused fund and incubator set up by online stock trading startup Zerodha.
2. GoldenPi
GoldenPi Technologies claims to be India’s top Fintech company that enables individual investors to invest in Bonds and Debentures online. GoldenPi is India’s largest online platform to buy and sell bonds and debentures.
Over ₹4000 Crores worth of Bonds is listed on this portal with real-time price updates. This platform was set up in 2017 and is focused on providing fixed-income investment options such as bonds or debentures for individuals and larger households. GoldenPi acts as an aggregator of these instruments.
The claims to curate available secondary market offerings that are rated between ‘AAA’ and ‘A’ and provide information to help in investment decision-making. The platform also handles the end-to-end transaction process for investors till the bonds or debentures that they invest in are credited to their dematerialization (Demat) account.
Our research also indicates that like WintWealth, GoldenPi has raised ₹3.5 crores from Rainmatter Capital (Zerodha).
3. The Fixed Income
www.fixedincome.com belongs to a parent company that goes by the name Tipsons. Tipsons is a SEBI-registered organization that has embedded itself as a national-level financial conglomerate by making its presence in most segments of financial services.
This includes Merchant Banking, Fixed Income Services, Investment Banking, Equity Broking, Commodity Broking, Currency & Interest Rate Derivatives, Wealth Management, etc. Akin to its competitors, the platform offers a comprehensive collection of investment options across the duration and credit parameters.
The platform interface is fairly simple the offerings range from Government Bonds, Sovereign Bonds, 54EC Bonds (capital gains bonds), RBI Saving Bonds, Corporate FDs, and Bond IPOs.
4. IndiaBonds
www.Indiabonds.com is backed by the expertise of AK Capital. A.K. Capital Services Ltd. is one of the leading domestic financial services groups in India.
The company is the country’s leading SEBI-registered Category-I Merchant Banker. They are engaged in providing merchant banking services.
They are also engaged in management consultancy advisory services and financial restructuring.
With a mission and marketing slogan “A Bond in Every Hand“, this platform provides direct access to the corporate bond market which has been usually reserved for larger institutional and wealthy investors. The company promotes investor empowerment and education by offering better information, learning, tools, services, opportunities, and negligible costs.
They are currently offering easy-to-understand curated bond categories, assistance in facilitating bond sales, detailed reports and insights, and a directory of 25,000+ bond details along with expert insights.
5. INDmoney
www.indmoney.com is the brainchild of Ashish Kashyap. He was the first country manager of Google in India. In 2011, Kashyap co-founded ibibo Pay, a payments platform, which was later branded PayU and sold to Naspers in 2014. In his second innings, 45-year-old Kashyap launched a wealth management startup named INDmoney.
INDmoney, INDwealth, and IND.app are brands and products of Finzoom Investment Advisors (P) Limited. © Finzoom Investment Advisors Private Limited. It is a Super Finance App that helps you to save, plan, and invest across your family members — an all-in-one App.
Since its launch in 2019, the application has quickly grown to 5 million users backed by innovative features. Apart from bonds the platform also offers US Stock investing, Neo Banking, Deposits, and Financial life tracking & management.
Their bond platform offers suggestions, for corporate bonds, public sector bonds, and bank-issued bonds.
The bond listings on this platform typically contain Current year till date returns, Coupon rate, the face value of a bond, issue date, maturity date, payment term, and other key metrics such as the nature of the bond and Coupon structure (floating or fixed).
6. Kredx
www.KredX.com, headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka, is primarily a web-based invoice discounting tool that allows businesses to fundraise for their operating expenses. Apart from their key business model, investors can gain access to a diverse range of bonds and easily skim through them to pick one that matches their requirements.
As claimed by the company, all the bonds available on KredX’s platform yield high returns. The available bonds are said to be highly credible with a decent credit rating. It lets investors put money into an avenue that is relatively safe and can help generate substantial returns over time.
KredX exposes investors to unique alternative debt investment instruments — invoice discounting, corporate bonds, digital gold/silver, and portfolio management and advisory services. Since KredX is operating on a highly diversified business model you are urged to do additional research about this platform to suit your needs.
7. HDFCsec
www.HDFCSec.com is a bigwig on our list. HDFC Securities Limited is a financial services intermediary and a subsidiary of HDFC Bank, a private sector bank in India.
HDFC Securities was founded in the year 2000 and is headquartered in Mumbai with branches across major cities and towns in India. Their bond platform offers various bond categories including Zero-Coupon Bonds, G-Sec Bonds, Corporate Bonds, Inflation-linked bonds, convertible bonds, sovereign bonds, and RBI bonds.
As the bank and its services attract partially informed clientele, you may confront a bit of a user interface (UI) challenge in getting simplified information with big fancy fonts as offered by other smaller competitors listed on our list.
8. Bondskart
www.BondsKart.com is India’s first intuitive investment platform that brings a rich variety of premium bonds and debentures to retail investors, in a matter of just a few clicks. The platform is backed by JM Financial and is platform is powered by intensive insights on fixed-income investment.
Bondskart aims to educate investors on various aspects of investments. It provides flexibility to buy and sell debt securities with secure settlements and is operated by minimal human intervention.
The company also boasts about its 360-degree fixed-income investment options, across rating categories, yields, and instrument types such as plain vanilla bonds, sub-debt/ tier II, and perpetual bonds aided by in-house analytics and a data-driven technology platform.
This platform is equipped with end-to-end security features and offers a safe, user-friendly interface for fixed-income investment options.
Bondskart.com is a potent alternative route for investing in bonds and provides investment options to help investors make informed decisions.
9. Kotakcherry
www.kotakcherry.com is another big player on the bonds retailing turf.
Kotak Investment Advisors’ one-stop investment solution provider ‘Kotak Cherry’ aims to be an open architecture platform, which will help investors in choosing from a wide array of offerings beyond the ones manufactured by Kotak group companies. Cherry brings you the choicest bonds.
Bond’s journey on Cherry is hassle-free and smooth. Like other platforms, Cherry offers multiple categories to choose from.
The platform and app are intuitive and packed with loads of information. You can directly link your Demat account to facilitate your transactions.
10. SMEST
Relatively a smaller player, SMEST is an investment platform where investors can find the best Fixed Income securities to invest in and can invest their money without any hassles. Incorporated in 2018, Smart Capital has emerged as the fastest-growing SEBI-regulated fixed-income broker in India that offers a conglomerate of products in the debt segment.
The company has its presence in Mumbai and has offices in India. Their product suite offers bonds across six major categories and includes Government Securities, State Development Bonds, Treasury bills, certificates of Deposits, Corporate Bonds, and Sovereign Gold Bonds.
You can start investing on this platform with a capital as low as ₹10,000.
Conclusion
With the large range of options offered by digital retailers, investing in complicated instruments like bonds is now rather simple. And even though decisions can be carried out with the simple push of a button, all investors are reminded to do their homework carefully before committing any capital. Bond investments should be motivated by a variety of factors, not just returns. A bond’s quality is typically determined by several additional factors, including:
☑ Creditworthiness
☑ Complexity,
☑ Exit alternatives, and
☑ Risk-return equilibrium
As the bond platforms are creating a level playing field for common people, they are also careful contemplations for most realized self-directed investors. Whatever platform you choose, make sure it has features like an easy-to-use interface, dependability, and transparent business practices to help you carefully diversify your portfolio.
Please feel free to remark if you believe that we have overlooked any bond platforms that should be featured here.
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