Jiraaf launches India’s first Bond Analyser to decode fixed-income investing

2The bond market is growing rapidly and is accompanied by a falling interest rate. Earlier this month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced a larger-than-expected 50 basis point rate cut, lowering the repo rate to 5.50%, marking its third consecutive cut this year.

Even with this rapid growth, investor tools haven’t kept pace to make smart decisions. With interest rates on fixed deposits (FD) expected to go even lower, bonds may be the next best choice for investors.

With this in mind, bonds and fixed-income investments platform Jiraaf has introduced its all-new tool— Bond Analyzer, which will support smart investing with sharper insight to investors.

ETMarkets had an interaction with Vineet Agrawal, Co-founder of Jiraaf, who shared his insights on the Bond Analyzer and how it will support investors in making informed decisions while investing in bonds. Here are the excerpts from his chat:

What inspired the creation of Bond Analyser, and how does it address the current pain points in India’s fixed-income market for both new and seasoned investors?

When you look at the equity market, there are plenty of tools available for research, analysis, and comparison. But for bond investors? Practically nothing. That’s a big gap, especially now, as retail participation in India’s bond market is steadily rising.
The reality is that individual retail investors do not have the same time or access to deep data as institutions do. And without tools to compare bond investment opportunities, making informed decisions becomes tough.
That’s exactly why we built the Bond Analyser Suite. It’s India’s first comprehensive fixed-income intelligence platform — designed to bring everything investors need into one place. Whether you’re new to bonds or an experienced investor, the suite helps you decode market trends, compare issuances, and truly understand the landscape.
In short, it gives investors the clarity and confidence to make smarter bond investments.

You mentioned this is the first tool of its kind in the OBPP space. Can you elaborate on what sets Bond Analyser apart from existing tools or platforms in the Indian market?

Absolutely. We’re proud to say that Jiraaf’s Bond Analyser is the first-of-its-kind bond analysis tool in the OBPP space. It reflects our core belief — that fixed-income investing should be as transparent and accessible as equity investing.

Right now, there are no tools available in India that let retail investors compare yields on similarly rated bonds by tenure, credit rating, or structure — a basic, yet powerful lens for making smarter decisions.

That’s the gap we set out to solve. Bond Analyser brings institutional-grade analysis to every investor’s fingertips. Whether you’re looking for higher yields, lower risk, or specific tenures, this tool helps you slice the data your way and invest with confidence.

How does the tool ensure the accuracy and timeliness of the bond market data it aggregates and visualizes? Are there any partnerships or proprietary data sources involved?

The Bond Analyser tool has been developed entirely in-house by Jiraaf’s experienced teams across functions. We sourced information from a wide range of credible public sources, including FIMMDA, NSDL, CDSL, NSE/BSE, SEBI, and others.

Our risk and finance teams play a key role in aggregating and validating this data. We’ve built proprietary data-cleaning and normalization frameworks that allow us to merge fragmented datasets, remove inconsistencies, and generate reliable, high-quality insights. This curated data is then visualized in the Bond Analyser, helping investors make more informed fixed-income investment decisions.

While we don’t currently rely on proprietary or partner-only data sources, the value lies in how we transform publicly available data into actionable intelligence using our proprietary logic.

One standout feature is issuer landscape clarity. How can investors use this data to assess creditworthiness or spot issuance trends better before they become mainstream?

The Bond Analyser brings clarity to who is tapping into the debt markets, how often, and for how much. By tracking issuance frequency, size, and mode, investors can spot emerging trends, assess market appetite, and better gauge a company’s borrowing behavior — key signals when evaluating creditworthiness and anticipating supply-demand shifts.

Can you walk us through how the yield comparison feature works—especially in terms of bond-to-bond comparisons and identifying yield outliers?

One of the most dynamic and impactful features of our Bond Analyser Suite from the investor perspective is the ‘Yield Comparison’ feature. The feature enables multiple comparisons, providing the user with a multifaceted insight into bond yields. It is made to make your bond research easier and sharper.

You can:

• Compare a bond’s yield with government securities to see the risk premium you’re getting.
• Look across different credit ratings to understand how yields shift with risk.
• Even stack up bonds from different issuers side by side to spot outliers or better-value picks.
• It’s a quick way to cut through the noise and make more informed investment calls.

How do you see retail or HNI investors using this tool differently from institutional players? Is the interface or insight delivery tailored to different risk appetites or experience levels?

The Bond Analyser is designed for everyone—whether you’re a first-time retail investor, a seasoned HNI, or somewhere in between. It simplifies complex bond data like yields, risk, and issuance trends into easy, actionable insights. When it comes to expected returns, we provide a short range with one standard deviation, considering variations influenced by ticket sizes.

While institutional players may find value in the depth of data, the tool is built with individual investors in mind—making professional-grade bond analysis accessible to all, regardless of investment size or experience.

Will the Bond Analyser evolve to include scenario modelling—for example, how bond portfolios may perform under different macroeconomic conditions or interest rate movements?

Launching the Bond Analyser is just the first step—we see it as the foundation for a much larger journey. The current version already offers historical trends, helping users understand how market factors have influenced interest rates over time.

While scenario modelling isn’t part of this release, it’s on our radar. As we gather more feedback from users, we’ll look to add features like future rate simulations, ideal portfolio suggestions, and comparative tools—building the product around what investors truly need.

With structured debt instruments gaining traction, does the tool also include analysis or comparability of such products, or is it currently focused solely on traditional corporate bonds?

Yes, Structured Debt Investments, also called SDIs, are gaining traction as the debt market becomes more sophisticated and formalized in India. We have SDIs available on the Jiraaf platform to invest, and we aim to bring a lot of SDI opportunities in the coming weeks and months; however, from the Bond Analyser perspective, it will focus solely on bond analysis for the time being. Over time, we may incorporate SDIs or launch a product specifically designed for SDIs.

With the RBI implementing a 50 bps rate cut recently, how does Bond Analyser help investors recalibrate their fixed-income strategies in this shifting rate environment?

The Bond Analyser is a historical analysis tool—not a yield predictor—but it’s highly relevant in a changing rate environment. With the RBI’s 50 bps rate cut, yields are adjusting, and the tool reflects these shifts using up-to-date data from both primary and secondary markets.

It helps investors see how yields are compressing across credit ratings and tenures, enabling smarter portfolio decisions, especially if returns dip below their targets. No guesswork, no hunting across sources—just clear trends, all in one place.

Are you observing any emerging patterns in yield behaviour or investor sentiment post the rate cut, and how does the tool surface those trends for the user?

Yields have largely remained somewhat steady post the 50-bps rate cut, largely because the market had already priced in a 100-bps cut for FY25–26. However, new bond issuances are expected to come at lower coupon rates as the market aligns with the new rate cycle.

We are seeing strong investor demand for bonds as many look to lock in current yields before they drop further. At the same time, issuers are actively raising capital to take advantage of lower borrowing costs. This balance of rising demand and increased supply is keeping yields stable, for now.

The Bond Analyser surfaces these trends in its market insights section, helping investors stay ahead of shifting sentiment and issuance patterns.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)