Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be launching the ₹33,000 crore backstop fund for the corporate bond market and limited purpose clearing corporation for repo transactions in corporate bonds in Mumbai on Friday, Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch revealed at the media briefing on Monday.

Earlier this year the capital markets regulator had approved setting up a backstop facility for the Corporate Debt Market Development Fund in the form of an alternative investment fund. During times of stress in the bond market the corpus would be utilised to buy illiquid investment grade corporate deb.

The fund will be managed by SBI Asset Management Company, Buch said. In June, SEBI had allowed direct participation by entities in repo transactions in corporate bonds of Limited Purpose Clearing Corp, so that market players need not go through a clearing member to take part in repos of corporate bonds.