WIDENING THE POOL

THERE HAS BEEN A JUMP IN INDIVIDUALS INVESTING DIRECTLY IN THE STOCK MARKETS, BUT MUMBAI AND AHMEDABAD STILL ACCOUNT FOR THE LION'S SHARE. THERE DEFINITELY IS SCOPE FOR IMPROVEMENT IN TERMS OF PENETRATION LEVELS ACROSS THE COUNTRY

- ASHISH RUKHAIYAR

THE NATIONAL STOCK Exchange (NSE) is the country’s largest stock exchange in terms of market share, and, on average, sees trading of shares worth more than ₹1 lakh crore in the cash segment daily. There are more than 90 million registered investors on the bourse with the total number of client codes recently crossing 169 million. The number of client codes is higher as one investor can register with more than one brokerage firm.

More importantly, a jump in the number of registered investors, from 80 to 90 million, took just five months—much quicker than the previous 10 million increase that took eight months—even as the cumulative investor base has grown more than 3x in the last five years.

A similar trend can be seen on the BSE as well. Asia’s oldest stock exchange, that traces its origins back to 1875, has more than 160 million registered investors with the number jumping by nearly 31% in the last one year, per data available on the BSE website.

This may seem to paint a rosy picture of investors increasingly looking at the well-regulated, transparent, and liquid arena of stock markets for investing their hard-earned money and that they may slowly but steadily be moving away from physical assets, like real estate and gold.

There is, however, a side to it that requires urgent attention of all capital market stakeholders including the regulator, stock exchanges, and brokerage firms.