May the tribe increase! 26 lakh demat accounts added in 10 months | Demat accounts
The tribe of retail investors, which had long shunned equity markets are slowly and steadily making a comeback. The renewed confidence in the primary market has seen the number of new demat accounts spurting by over 26 lakh in last 10 months. The number of total demat accounts held with CDSL and NSDL have grown by 26,61,515 in last 10 months.
The Central Depository Services India Ltd (CDSL) had crossed the coveted 1 crore mark in August last year, since then the depository has added 12,24,276 new demat accounts, which takes the total demat accounts to 1,12,24,276 as of June 30, 2016.
Similarly, its peer, the National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) has added 14,37,239 new accounts during the period under review. The total demat accounts held with NSDL rose to 1,46,76,023 as of June 30, which were 1,32,38,784 as of August 31, 2015. NSDL currently holds 1,46,76,023 demat accounts.
The total combined demat accounts held with both the depositories stand at 2.59 crore. It is pertinent to note that the number of total demat accounts in the country had crossed 2 crore mark in August 2014. In last 22 months, both the depositories have added nearly 60 lakhs new demat accounts.
N. RangaRs.5.50 per transaction), product innovation and above all substantial improvement in quality of service delivered by the DPs and Depositories in the Capital Market.â€
TS Krishna Murthy was appointed as the new Chairman of CDSL on May 30, 2016.
Apart from the increasing number of demat accounts with both the depositories, data shows that the total value of securities in dematerialised form at NSDL stood at nearly Rs.122 lakh crore at the end of June 2016, growing at 1.6% as compared to Rs.120 crore as of August 2015.
Market experts are of the view that apart from a sharp resurgence in IPO markets, the secondary markets, too, have fared steady amidst the global economic slowdown. Besides, the government’s move towards ‘Single Demat Account’ has played a key role. It is expected that assets such as fixed deposits of banks and corporates, insurance policies, pension products among others will be kept in demat form, which will result into a further surge in demat accounts in coming months.
Moreover, the robust IPO pipeline, which includes multi- million dollar IPOs of companies such as PNB Life, L&T Infotech and Vodafone coupled with some other prominent public issues, are expected to see impressive numbers of new demat accounts to be added in the current year. However, market experts reiterate that retail investors, particularly in stock markets and commodities, still account for 6-7% of total number of demat accounts held with CDSL and NSDL.