Demat account hits new high in FY24, 31 lakh more additions in March

The sustained market rally in financial year 2023-24 saw a healthy growth in opening of demat accounts, which propelled the total number of such accounts to 15.10 crore till March 2024. New account additions surged to 31 lakh for the month with an average monthly additions of 31 lakh account additions in FY24.

In March, the Central Depository Services Limited (CDSL) continued to gain market share in terms of the total number of demat accounts and also recorded an increase in the market share on a month-on-month (MoM) basis. However, the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) lost 390bp/570bp market share in total/incremental demat accounts on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.

Among the exchanges, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) posted an increase in active clients for the ninth consecutive month. The number of active clients at NSE increased 1.8 percent MoM to 4.08 crore in March this year.

Currently, the top five discount brokers account for 63.8 percent of the total NSE active clients compared to 59.9 percent in March 2023.

The increasing number of account openings reflects the rising investor interest in financial markets, experts noted. Successful IPOs have also attracted new investors to the market.

In FY2024, India saw a significant increase in demat accounts with an average of 30 lakh additions monthly. Both major depositories, CDSL and NSDL experienced an 11.9 percent YoY surge bringing the total tally to 15.14 crore from 11.45 crore.

Performance of brokers

The performance of key discount brokers were a mixed bag for FY24 with Zerodha reporting a 0.9 percent MoM increase in its client count to 73 lakh and a decline of 20 basis points in its market share to 17.9 percent. Upstox reported a 0.6 percent MoM increase in its client count to 25 lakh with its market share declining by 10 basis points to 6.2 percent, while Groww posted a 3.8 percent MoM increase in its client count to 95 lakh with a 50 basis points rise in market share to 23.4 percent.

Among the key traditional brokers ISEC reported a 1.3 percent MoM decline in its client count to 18 lakh and a 15 basis points decline in market share to 4.5 percent, while IIFL Securities posted a 0.3 percent MoM gain in its client count to 4 lakh with a market share of 1.1 percent.

Overall ADTO declines

The total average daily turnover (ADTO) declined 5 percent MoM (up 95 percent YoY) to Rs 461 lakh crore with F&O ADTO declining by 5 percent MoM and cash ADTO declining by 16 percent MoM.

Retail cash ADTO declined 23 percent MoM to Rs 40,700 crore.

The total ADTO from BSE increased 8 percent MoM on the back of growth in F&O volumes, while the total ADTO for NSE declined 7 percent MoM.

Commodity exchange MCX reported an overall ADTO gain of of 10 percent MoM.

Total volumes on the exchange increased on MoM to Rs 26.8 lakh crore in March, and volumes in options and futures increased by 5.7 percent MoM to Rs 23.4 lakh crore.

In the primary market, an amount of Rs 5,800 crore was raised via nine IPOs.