Debt market refers to the financial market where investors buy and sell debt securities, mostly in the form of bonds. These markets are important source of funds, especially in a developing economy like India. India debt market is one of the largest in Asia. Like all other countries, debt market in India is also considered a useful substitute to banking channels for finance. The most distinguishing feature of the debt instruments of Indian debt market is that the return is fixed. This means, returns are almost risk-free. This fixed return on the bond is often termed as the 'coupon rate' or the 'interest rate'. Therefore, the buyer (of bond) is giving the seller a loan at a fixed interest rate, which equals to the coupon rate.
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Classification of Indian Debt Market
Indian debt market can be classified into two categories:
Government Securities Market (G-Sec Market): It consists of central and state government securities. It means that, loans are being taken by the central and state government. It is also the most dominant category in the India debt market.
Bond Market: It consists of Financial Institutions bonds, Corporate bonds and debentures and Public Sector Units bonds. These bonds are issued to meet financial requirements at a fixed cost and hence remove uncertainty in financial costs.
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Advantages
The biggest advantage of investing in Indian debt market is its assured returns. The returns that the market offer is almost risk-free (though there is always certain amount of risks, however the trend says that return is almost assured). Safer are the government securities. On the other hand, there are certain amounts of risks in the corporate, FI and PSU debt instruments. However, investors can take help from the credit rating agencies which rate those debt instruments. The interest in the instruments may vary depending upon the