Economic Survey 2023: Demat accounts witness sharp surge, incremental additions on declining trend

The Economic Survey 2022-23 tabled in Parliament on Tuesday highlighted the sharp surge in the number of demat accounts. The survey said that the number of demat accounts rose to 10.6 crore in November 2022, on a Year-on-Year basis.

However, "the incremental additions of demat accounts have been on a declining trend during FY23 relative to FY22, probably because of the increased volatility in the secondary market and subdued primary market performance, amid prevailing global headwinds during the current financial year," it added.

As per the survey, during in the April-November period in 2021, a total of 2.2 crore demat accounts were added while the figures slumped to 1.71 crore in 2022.

The total number of demat accounts by the end of November 2022 stood at 10.6 crore, as compared to 7.66 crore at the end of November 2021. registering a growth of 39 percent.

The share of individual investors in the cash segment marginally declined to 37.5 percent during the April-November 2022 period, compared to 42.2 percent in the same period in 2021.

Markets experts said that the growth in demat is due to the attractive returns from the equity markets, ease of account opening process and increased financial savings.

The turnover in equity derivatives rose to Rs 20,980 lakh crore in the period under review from Rs 9,861 lakh crore in April-November 2021. The cash segment turnover declined by 21 percent to Rs 98.2 lakh crore between April and November 2022, compared to Rs 124.3 lakh crore in the same period previous year.

The turnover in currency derivatives jumped by 87 percent on a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis to Rs 280 lakh crore in FY23 (till November) and turnover in commodity derivatives surged 42 per cent on y-o-y to Rs 92.6 lakh crore during the period under review.

The Indian stock market saw a resilient performance, with the bluechip index Nifty 50 registering a return of 3.7 percent during April-December 2022, and BSE benchmark Sensex closing 3.9 percent higher at the end of December 2022, from its closing level on March 31, 2022, the survey said.