We all know about savings accounts with banks. It allows easy access to our funds while offering security from theft and mishandling. A Demat account does the same for investors. Nowadays, the Demat account is a prerequisite for stock investment.

Demat Account is an account that is used to hold shares and securities in electronic format. The full form of Demat account is a dematerialised account. The purpose of opening a Demat account is to hold shares that have been bought or dematerialised (converted from physical to electronic shares), thus making share trading easy for the users during online trading.

In India, depositories such as NSDL and CDSL provide Free Demat account services. Intermediaries, depository participants or stockbrokers - like Angel One - facilitate these services. Each intermediary may have Demat account charges that vary as per volume held in the account, type of subscription, and terms and conditions between a depository and a stockbroker.

What is Demat account?

A Demat Account or Dematerialised Account provides the facility of holding shares and securities in an electronic format. During online trading, shares are bought and held in a Demat Account, thus, facilitating easy trade for the users. A Demat Account holds all the investments an individual makes in shares, government securities, exchange-traded funds, bonds and mutual funds in one place.

Demat enabled the digitisation process of the Indian stock trading market and enforced better governance by SEBI. In addition, the Demat account reduced the risks of storing, theft, damage, and malpractices by storing securities in electronic format. It was first introduced in 1996 by NSE. Initially, the account opening process was manual, and it took investors several days to get it activated. Today, one can open a Demat account online in 5 mins. The end-to-end digital process has contributed to popularising Demat, which skyrocketed in the pandemic.

What is dematerialisation?

Dematerialisation is the process of converting the physical share certificates into electronic form, which is a lot easier to maintain and is accessible from anywhere throughout the world. An investor who wants to trade online needs to open a Demat with a Depository Participant (DP). The purpose of is to eliminate the need for the investor to hold physical share certificates and facilitating a seamless tracking and monitoring of holdings.

Earlier, the share certificate issuance process was time-consuming and cumbersome, which Demat has helped transform by speeding the entire process and storing security certificates in digital format. Once your Demat account is active, you can convert paper certificates into digital format by submitting all your physical securities along with a Dematerialisation Request Form (DRF). Also, remember to deface each physical certificate by mentioning ‘ Surrendered for Dematerialisation’ on it. You will receive an acknowledgement slip when you surrender your share certificates.

Advantages unique to ARQ - by Angel One

Index beating returns

Index beating returns

ARQ gives you a shot at earning the best possible returns. It takes emotional bias completely out of the equation and helps you make the right investments that have the potential to offer great returns.

Personalised investment recommendations

Personalised recommendations

ARQ uses Nobel prize-winning Modern Portfolio Theory to give you personalised recommendations. Thus, you get the best asset allocation advice across major asset classes like equity, gold & debt mutual funds, which is unique to your risk preferences and helps you achieve your financial goals faster.

Recommendations based on future potential

Recommendations based on future potential

Powered by advanced technology, ARQ processes billions of data points and sorts through billions of combinations to create models that have superior predictive power. Hence, the stocks & mutual funds recommendations have the highest future performance potential.

Start investing with any amount

Start investing with any amount

There is no fixed investment amount to start investing with ARQ. You can experience the power of ARQ by opening a Demat account with Angel One and start investing with any amount of money.

Portfolio notifications

Portfolio notifications

Once you start investing with ARQ, you will receive periodic auto notifications to rebalance your portfolio. Thus, ARQ always keeps you invested in the most profitable stocks and mutual funds.

ARQ qutperforms benchmarks consistently

ARQ outperforms benchmarks consistently

Extensive back-testing and comprehensive track records have proven time and again that ARQ outperforms the benchmarks by a handsome margin. So, if you invest in recommendations given by ARQ you stand a better chance to earn higher returns.

Demat account FAQs

FAQs