Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey on Friday made it clear that the regulator is not planning to bring any new regulatory framework for digital gold at this stage as this investment product is not under the purview of the market regulator.
On the sidelines of the National Conclave on REITs and InvITs 2025, the Sebi chief said: "Our gold regulations have already been explained through a press release. Gold investment can be done either through gold ETFs offered by mutual funds or through tradable gold securities. These are the products included in the regulated space, so for now we are focused only on these products."
His remarks came amid a significant surge in the investment of digital gold through several platforms. The volume of digital gold purchases through UPI (unified payments interface) surged 377% in 16 months to 99.77 million transactions in August 2025 while it stood at 20.92 million transactions in April 2024, data from NPCI showed. The value of gold purchases more than doubled during this period to ₹1,184 crore in October from Rs 550 crore in April 2024.
On 8 November 2025, SEBI had issued a public notice cautioning investors that digital gold/E-gold products, marketed as an alternative for investment in physical gold, are unregulated and may carry significant risk. “Digital gold has been promoted for the past few years as an alternate method of purchasing gold online, which is backed by physical gold stored in secure and insured vaults of the companies which are selling these digital investment options,” it said.
Major fintech companies like PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm via SafeGold, and other jewellery companies like CaratLane, Tanishq and MMTC-PAMP have offered electronic vaults to the investors to keep these digital gold offerings.