Starting from 2 February 2008, the permanent account number (PAN) will serve as the common identification number for all mutual fund (MF) investments above Rs 50,000. This single number will work for all MFs — unlike today when each investor has to provide a separate number (folio number) issued by each of the 32 fund [...]

Strong fundamentals and rising secondary markets coupled with block buster IPOs like Reliance Power (RePL) have brought in a flood of demat accounts. Indian markets have crossed over 1.2 crore demat accounts, with the 2007 October-December quarter alone registering more than 12,00,000 new demat accounts. NSDL (National Securities Depository Ltd) added 5,17,000 new demat accounts [...]

In a move that will take the frontiers of banking transactions beyond the ATM and internet, full-fledged banking transactions through mobile phones have been introduced by ICICI Bank. The bank has now kicked off a mobile banking service, where a customer can replicate all transactions through mobile similar to an internet banking transaction. Till now, [...]

Gujarat makes up for about 15% of India’s total 11.5 mn demat accounts.  The Rs11,700 crore Reliance Power Ltd’s initial public offering (IPO), which is to open on 15 January, appears to have had an impact on the opening of new dematerialized, or demat, accounts in Gujarat. Such accounts are needed to buy or sell [...]

Close to two years after SEBI first unearthed the IPO scam and the process of opening demat accounts became stricter, demand for opening such accounts is soaring again. While some analysts are attributing the phenomenal rise to genuine interest in the Reliance Power IPO, others claim that brokers are merely hiring demat accounts for booking [...]

HDFC Bank, one of the largest private sector banks in India, is entering the highly competitive and hugely profitable business of investment banking. It has obtained the requisite merchant banking licence from Sebi and is in the process of setting up its team, sources said. An HDFC Bank spokesperson confirmed that it has got Sebi [...]

Value of securities held by over 7.9 million investors in their accounts in the NSDL depository system has crossed US$ 1 trillion. The value as of the week ended September 22, 2007 stood at more than Rs. 42,00,000 Crore.

The Indian equity market may be one of the best performers in terms of returns. However, the so-called equity cult is yet to spread in the country as the number of equity investors is just 1 per cent of the total population.    To make matters worse, less than 40 per cent (37.66 per cent) [...]

It has been 11 years since the demat account system was launched, but many of us are still either ignorant about it or don’t know how best to operate it. For instance, do you know why some brokers don’t transfer shares to a client’s demat account from the company’s pool account? Demat, or dematerialization, is [...]

UAE Exchange & Finance Limited has become a Depository Participant (DP) with the Central Depository Services (India) Limited. This facilitates UAE Exchange to open demat accounts for its customers.Demat accounts can be opened and operated by the public just like a bank account for holding stock of shares purchased. Customers who have demat accounts with [...]