NSDL celebrates 25 years of driving digital securities markets in India

by Suman Gupta

• Union Finance Minister, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman along with Chief Postmaster General, Smt. Veena Ramakrishna Srinivas releases postal stamp and special cover on 25 years of NSDL

• Union Finance Minister launches ‘Market Eklavya” – an investor awareness program for students in Hindi and various regional languages

• SEBI Chairperson, Smt. Madhabi Puri Buch unveils NSDL’s blockchain platform for Debenture Covenant Monitoring

Mumbai, May , 2022: India’s largest depository, National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) celebrated the completion of 25 glorious years of service to the Indian capital markets. This momentous occasion was graced by the Honourable Union Finance Minister, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Smt. Madhabi Puri Buch and Chief Postmaster General, Smt. Veena Ramakrishna Srinivas besides other dignitaries.

The event kickstarted in Mumbai with the unveiling of a corporate video that manifested NSDL’s magnificent journey over the last 25 years.

Finance Minister, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman today launched ‘Market ka Eklavya,’ an online investor awareness program for students in Hindi and other regional languages. The program aims to introduce the basics of the securities market to students. Of the total 1.36 billion population in India, only about 7% have demat accounts/ invest in equities and this awareness program is aimed at educating tomorrow’s investors on risk-rewards matrix of investing.

Speaking on this commemorative occasion, Finance Minister, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman said, “I am extremely pleased to be here today to celebrate NSDL’s glorious 25 years. NSDL’s great work especially in the last 2 years has brought a lot of dynamism to the institution. It has been acquiring global best practices and has been ahead of the curve. Through ‘Market ka Eklavya’, you will be able to reach out to many who are in need of financial literacy. It is the right time when people have an inclination to know about the market and also the right approach, medium taken by NSDL. Youth across the world will be benefited from these kinds of initiatives if is made available in several languages”

From an average of 4 lakh new demat accounts opened every month in 2019-20, it tripled to 12 lakh per month in 2020-21 and has further increased to around 26 lakh per month in 2021-22.

While launching the industry first platform Smt. Madhabi Puri Buch said, “It is indeed a pleasure to be here for the landmark event of celebrating 25 years of NSDL. The Depository is working to adopt new technologies and building critical market infrastructure for the security and covenant monitoring of Bond issuances. Going forward, today will also be remembered as an important day as we are taking the first step in terms of use of distributed ledger technology in the market”.

The Finance Minister also released the My Stamp and special cover, honouring NSDL’s contribution to the development of Indian capital markets. The Chief Postmaster General, Smt Veena Ramakrishna Srinivas anchored the release and stated that the stamp was issued in commemorative of NSDL’s Silver Jubilee Celebration.

Speaking on this memorial occasion, NSDL Managing Director & CEO, Padmaja Chundru said, “On this occasion I would like to thank our Hon’ble Finance Minister and SEBI Chairperson for their gracious presence. Also, I would like to thank all our business partners and investors without whom this journey would not have been possible. Technology, Trust, and Reach form the backbone for our organisation. NSDL always believes in high standards of service, and we would continue to keep innovating and adapting to newer technology to provide ease to our customers.”

About NSDL: NSDL (http://www.nsdl.co.in) is India’s first and one of the leading Central Securities Depositories in the world. It has played a key role in transforming the Indian securities market by facilitating holding and transfer of securities in dematerialised form. The market share of NSDL in value of demat assets is more than 89%. NSDL demat accounts are located in more than 99% of pin codes in the country and 167 countries across the globe, reflecting the wide reach of NSDL.

About the Debenture Covenant Monitoring: The information stored in the system will be cryptographically signed, time stamped and sequentially added to the ledger. It would provide a verifiable audit trail of transactions, thus strengthening the confidence in the market as these assets will be continuously monitored with a strong and unalterable transaction audit trail. NSDL recognizes the potential of blockchain solution which is a new emerging technology for decentralized distributed ledger to record real-time transactions across partner network.