Demat account tally at 12.65 crore by August 2023 end

The boom in the stock market and successive initial public offers (IPOs), has led to record number of demat accounts in the country but there is a decline in the number of active traders. In the stock market, an active demat account or active client is considered to be one who places a deal to buy or sell shares at least once in a year. According to the report, more than 75 percent of the demat accounts saw no activity across in the last 12 years.

According to the data, by the end of August this year, the total number of demat accounts in the country has reached 12.65 crore. If compared to March this year, the number of demat accounts has increased by about 11 percent. At the end of March this year, the number of demat accounts was 11.43 crore. If the figures of demat accounts are compared with the period before the Corona period, then there has been a growth of about 210 percent. Till the end of March 2020, the number of demat accounts in the country was only 4 crores. But when the lockdown was imposed during the Corona period, there was an increase in share trading across the country and the number of demat accounts increased for the same.

However, there is not the same growth in active demat accounts as there has been in the opening of demat accounts. Statistics show that till last year the number of active demat accounts in the country was around 3.5 crore, which came down to 3.19 crore at the end of March this year and now in August only 3.15 active demat accounts are left. That means, more than 75 percent of the total demat accounts are not active.

The share of women in demat accounts opened for trading in the stock market is also increasing. Zerodha, a company that provides online broking facility for share trading, says that in 2018, the share of women in the demat accounts opened with it used to be 18 percent, which has now increased to 22 percent. Broking company Kotak Securities says that about 25 percent of the demat accounts with it are of women.