How to Use Demat Account?

Opening a Demat account, understanding the benefits of Demat Account, and documents required to open the account are important to know. But along with that, it is equally important to understand how to use Demat Account for trading.

Well, for starters, a Demat account basically helps you in storing the shares/stocks/investment products you have bought from the stock market in an electronic format. You don’t need to keep the shares in physical format and in fact, the whole process of buying and selling shares happens automatically.

The depository, NSDL and CDSL secure your shares in electronic or dematerialized form.

That is why it becomes really important for you to learn Dematerialization meaning. Because once you know what and how it works, then you would know how the use of Demat account in your investment life is so smoothened.

Well, before we jump any further, let’s talk about this incidence here.

Mr. Rajan Velur, an English professor from Chennai always made smart investment decisions by buying specific quantities of stocks every third or fourth month from his savings. By the end of his career, he was able to buy stocks worth ₹20 Lakhs. However, he never used a Demat account and kept all his shares in physical format.

At times, he kept some of his stock files with his local sub-broker himself once the purchase was made.

One fine day, Mr. Velur went to his broker and asked for his shares valued at around ₹3 Lakh. The sub-broker categorically said, “Well, you lost some part of your investments?”

To which, Mr. Velur responded, “I never invested in the shares you are mentioning. How come there was any loss?”

The broker simply showed him the POA that Velur had signed in the broker’s name who was basically trading on the professor’s behalf. Without even asking him!

Legally, there was no way Mr. Velur could do anything about it. It was too late for that now.

This is something that can happen to anyone. And that is why one must always know how to operate a Demat Account while keeping a close eye on the approvals you provide.

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How to Operate Demat Account?

So, having a Demat account makes sense but here comes another challenge of how to use a Demat account for share trading in India.

Let’s have a quick look at the steps involved in operating a Demat account online. 

• Once you open a Demat account with the renowned stockbroker, you will be provided with the login id and password in your email.
• Download the mobile trading app on your mobile phone or simply log in to the web app.
• After login, change the password by clicking on the “RESET PASSWORD” to make your account secure and safe.
• Post this, you can access the complete trading app to understand its features and use it for trading shares online.

Now let’s move ahead to learn how to trade using the Demat account.

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How to Trade Using Demat Account?

When you open a Demat account, whatever financial products you buy are stored in that particular online account. You can access this account with the help of a username and password that is provided by your stockbroker with which you have opened the account.

For example, if you applied for a few lots of an IPO and fortunately, you were allocated 1 lot of an IPO, then those shares in that particular lot will get stored automatically in the linked Demat account.

Apart from these, here are some of the parameters for the effective use of the Demat account for your investments and holdings:

1. Nominee in Demat Account

When you are about to open a Demat Account, you can choose to nominate anyone as a nominee to the account.

Thus, in case of the death of the account holder, all the holdings in the account are transferred to the nominee without the need for any formalities.

2. Online Account Information Updates

In case you want to update your address, contact information or any personal detail, you just need to inform your depository participant or stockbroker who is operating your account.

It is the responsibility of the broker to internally inform each of the companies you have invested in.

3. POA Transfer

If you want to transfer the control of your Demat account to someone else, then you just need to provide the POA or Power of Attorney to that person and the complete operations will be undertaken by that person at an official level. Without this provision of the POA movement, it is a pretty difficult and cumbersome sort of process.

In case you are looking for regular statements that provide information on your current holdings, then you can subscribe to both online and/or offline level statements.

These information pieces will provide you with details of the status, the monetary value of your holdings at that point in time. This makes the whole tracking and monitoring of your stock holdings much easier since all the information can be accessed online.

4. Financial Products Storage

Depending on your trading preferences, you can trade and invest in different segments such as Equity, Mutual funds, ETFs (exchange-traded funds), government securities, IPOs etc. All these investment products get stored in a dematerialized format i.e. in a Demat account.

When you use Demat Account, receiving interest payments, dividends of your shares, refunds of IPO investments, etc becomes a straightforward process without your involvement.

This is easy because it has an indirect integration to your bank account (internally through your trading account).

Here is a quick understanding of how to use Demat account in the background:

When you place a trade in the stock market to buy X shares of ABC company, the shares bought get stored in your Demat account. Later, if you choose to sell off 50 shares from your Demat account.

Now, these 50 shares will move from your Demat account to the buyer’s Demat account while the rest 50 shares will stay in your account.

In a sense, it works like your bank account where money gets transferred from one account to another. In this case, shares are getting transferred. More in this in the next point.

5. Transfer of Shares

If you are looking to transfer shares from one account to another, the overall process requires you to follow a few steps. While most of this process can be handled online, few brokers may ask for specific manual procedures.

However, without it, you will just end up making rounds of your broker’s branch carrying the physical files of your shares.

Finally, you can re-materialize your shares at any given point in time into physical files in the case, you are looking to close your Demat account. However, that would also imply that you would not be able to access your bought shares online.

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How to Use Demat Account ICICI?

Now if you have a Demat account with ICICI Direct, then it is important to begin your trading journey by gaining knowledge of how to use it efficiently for trading.

Well! as mentioned above, for this you need to download the application on your mobile phone.

Further login and start using various features using the app.

For let’s say, if you want to invest in the IPO, then click on the IPO option available at the top bar. Select the IPO you want to invest in and fill in the required details.

Further, you can use your Demat account to add a nominee, to switch your ICICI brokerage plan, to allocate your funds, and moreover can reap the benefit of portfolio management services.

So, download the ICICI Direct mobile app now and start using your Demat account for trading and investing in various segments right away.

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 Conclusion

In all, understanding the importance of Demat Account and further learning the process of using it efficiently not only helps in keeping your shares secured but also in trading across segments in as seamless way.

Every broker or bank provides the provision to open the Demat Account that simplifies the process of buying and selling shares.

Open your account now by meeting the basic requirements and streamlining the process of holding your securities.

Furthermore, if you are interested to open an account?

Enter Your details here and we will arrange a FREE Call back.

 

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