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After the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) mandated that no physical transfer of shares will be allowed from December 5 onward, Pavan Kumar approached his broker to dematerialise (demat) his stocks. The Registrar and Transfer Agent (RTA) rejected his application citing signature mismatch. “After the first rejection, they rejected my application four more times for signature mismatch. They first asked for additional identity documents, then affidavit in a particular format, and finally they asked me to get my signature verified by the branch manager of a nationalised bank,” says 69-year-old Kumar.

Kumar’s case is not one-off. Many individuals trying