Total primary market subscription by the retail investors in government securities, treasury bills state government loans and others, on the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Retail Direct Platform increased by 51 percent on-year as on March 17.
According to RBI data, the subscription stood at Rs 6,245.18 crore on March 17, against Rs 4,135.50 crore on March 18.
The RBI’s Retail Direct scheme helps individuals invest in government securities through a direct platform.
Majority of the subscription has come into treasury bills, which is almost double compared to last year. This is despite the short-term rates are marginally lower than long term rates but experts said that returns are better than bank’s short-term deposit rates.
Retail investment in T-Bills stood at Rs 4,367.38 crore on March 17 against Rs 2766.39 crore as on March 18, 2024.
“The lower short-term deposit rates by banks and higher T-Bills rates due to liquidity tightening have proved attractive for retail investors,” said Gopal Tripathi, Head of Treasury at Jana Small Finance Bank.
Money market expert said even though the treasury bills yields have fallen in primary market, the returns are better as compared to long-term dated securities because the spread between long term and short-term debt instruments is very narrow now.
The lower spread between the both instruments enables retail investors to park money at shorter end than longer end.
Currently, the spread between 10-year government securities and treasury bills stood at 8-10 basis points (Bps).
Apart from T-bills, Union government dated securities also witnessed a lot of demand from the retail investors on RBI retail direct platform. It stood at Rs 707.33 crore as on March 17, 2025, as compared to Rs 592.36 crore as on March 18, 2024.
This was followed by Rs 419.89 crore investment in state government securities, Rs 451.97 crore in floating rate savings bond, and Rs 298.61 crore in sovereign gold bonds as on March 17, 2025.
On the other hand, in the secondary market, even though there was surge in investment, volumes remain lower compared to primary market investment. Total traded volumes in the secondary market stood at Rs 1,756.08 crore on March 17 against Rs 633.92 crore in the previous year.
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