The ratio of people having several demat accounts with a PAN (permanent account number) has increased 504 times since 2016-17. According to data received from a study published in the bulletin this month of the market regulator SEBI, in FY 2017, a total of 61.8 lakh unique PANs were associated with two or more demat accounts. Since then, this figure increased to 3.73 crore in FY 2024. This growth overtook the total number of demat accounts which rose 444 percent to 15.1 crore during this period.
The number of more than three demat accounts with a PAN increased to 79 lakhs in FY 2024, which is more than 10 times as compared to 7 lakh people recorded in FY 2017. Since the financial year 2017, the number of people having three demat accounts with one PAN has increased by 6.9 times, while the number of two account holders has increased by 4.9 times with it.
The study stated that interesting things have emerged from analysis that the continuous increase in total demat accounts is increasing compared to unique individual demat accounts. This indicates that several demat accounts are present with one PAN. Out of individual demat account holders in late March 2024, only 59.4 percent of PAN accounts are unique accounts. The title of this study is – Growth of Individual Investors in Indian Securities Market. Its author is Kalyani H, Shiney Sunil and Prabhash Kumar Rath.
According to the ratio of total demat accounts, the share of unique demat accounts declined to 59.2 per cent in FY 2024, which was 79.9 per cent in FY 2017. According to the study, the total number of unique individual investor accounts was 8.96 crore in March 2024. According to the Economic Review 2024-25, these figures increased to 11.5 crores in December 2024.
Investment Advisor Jayant Vidwans said that many clients open several accounts to take advantage of the schemes of different portfolio management services. The PMS industry asks for a separate demat account for every investment.
According to SEBI data, the number of designing PMS clients was 70,994 in March 2017, which increased to 1,81,384 in November 2024. Scholance said that documentation of all such accounts in terms of family can help in succession.