New demat account tally slips below 3 million in October, shows data

With this, the total account tally has reached 132 million. In the preceding two months, the industry had added over 3 million accounts each month

The pace of demat account additions slowed in October amid a spike in market volatility. A total of 2.68 million new accounts were opened at brokerages last month. With this, the total account tally reached 132 million. 

In the preceding two months, the industry had added over 3 million accounts a month. Over 24 million new accounts — almost a fifth of the total — have been opened this year, which underscores that direct market investing and trading continues to be a big draw. 

In October, the benchmark indices fell nearly 3 per cent, their worst monthly performance since December 2022, amid sharp outflows from overseas funds triggered by rising bond yields in the US. 

Trading volumes were also impacted by the volatility with turnover of both, cash as well as derivatives, logging month-on-month losses in October. 

The total demat tally is, however, not an indication of unique investor count as a single user is allowed to open multiple demat accounts with different brokerages. 

In September, the country’s top bourse NSE had disclosed the total number of unique investors directly investing in the stock market were more than 80 million.