New Delhi, Feb. 10 -- One significant announcement in the budget relates to the introduction of market makers in India's corporate bond market. This idea has been around for some time, with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) having released a paper on it. Market makers are entities that get certain benefits for creating liquidity in a market. As a corollary, once this is enabled, retail access gets easier.

In the government securities (G-Sec) market, for example, primary dealers do this job when they subscribe to primary issuances. In the secondary market, they provide 'buy' and 'sell' quotes. This means that they hold on to securities and place them on offer for buyers to purchase. They take the risk of price changes but ...