Investing is crucial to making your savings work and providing returns over a longer period of time. The concept of a demat account is to create opportunities and find multiple assets that can be managed and diversify your financial portfolio.
So, keeping all the financial certificates in a single place lets you access your holdings and make an instant transfer. Since the 20th century, the stock market in India has been evolving with the help of the internet and digital technology. The market's investment opportunities are company stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, bonds, and derivatives. A demat account can be used as an active or inactive demat account as per your needs. To buy and sell these securities, you need to open a demat account, which can be done in four steps through the Share India trading platforms.
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What is a Demat Account?
A demat account is an online account to store your financial assets, which are in digital form. A demat account is opened with the depository participant through an online broker such as Share India. A demat account must be linked to your trading account. For instance, as an individual, you might avail of a demat account from a full-service broker, or you can open a demat account with a discount broker, which can do all the trading. But trading with a full-service broker lets you trade with assistance, and you can even get complete financial plans for your online trading. Similarly, you can ease your trouble of choosing an investment and selecting investment from the financial consultation and invest in gold, bonds, equities, etc.
If you keep your demat account inactive, it will become a dormant demat account. The dormant demat account cannot be used to trade in the stock market. Further, for the dormant account to convert it into a regular demat account, you need to inform your brokerage firm and follow the procedure to activate your demat account.
How Does the Demat Account Turn Into a Dormant Account?
Now that we know what a dormant account is, it's time to know the reason and duration for a demat account being converted into a dormant account. The reason for the demat account turning dormant is as follows:
Suppose your demat account has had no debit or credit transactions for more than six months. This means that the account is first categorised as inactive by your brokerage company.
If you still haven’t made any transaction activity after the inactive declaration of your demat account, then your demat account will turn into a dormant account.
Once the depository changes your demat account status, you will no longer be able to debit or credit transactions. But as a demat owner, your demat account cannot be closed or permanently deleted without the closure form. So, rebooting or converting your demat account requires performing a Know Your Customer (KYC) procedure. After completing KYC successfully, your depository participant might have any fees or charges you need to pay to reactivate your demat account.
Why Should You Monitor Your Dormant Demat?
A dormant demat account can be used by scammers who use demat accounts to perform unauthorised trading, known as ‘’front running. Front running is buying or selling a share based on the intel about the price of a particular share, which can generate an impression about a particular stock and mislead different investors about the surge of a particular share. For instance, if the scammer gets access to a demat account without its owner's knowledge and drains the holdings of a demat holder.
Suppose, for example, an order to buy 80k shares is to be placed. The broker knows this large order can affect the price of a stock. To make a profit, the broker will purchase a huge number of shares and, after placing the order, purchase the stock from a personal account in order to sell it at a high price when the client's order is processed, and then the market disrupts the situation.
A dormant account allows the demat owner to freeze their holdings, avoiding unauthorised access and transfers from your demat account. You must be aware of scammers asking for KYC information, which will be your mobile number, bank details, and personal documents. Properly contact your broker and register your email and contact number. Any fraudster who claims to be a broker representative can steal your identity and misuse your demat account.
Any person other than yourself must not be managed or have critical credentials. To avoid any fraud or scam on your demat account, you must write the date and purpose of submission of any personal document and e-sign your Aadhaar card for submitting the document in the KYC process. As the trader can also specify for freezing the demat account as ‘ not to be used for trading for a certain time’, the stock brokerage can shift your account to a dormant account for a certain time. A demat account is crucial for a vigilant trader. You must monitor the dormant demat account and the regular demat account.
Conclusion
There is no clear rule about how long your demat account will remain inactive and turn into a dormant account. This rule varies from broker to broker. So, as a beginner investor or an experienced investor, it's important to monitor your dormant demat account regularly. If you find out about any unknown transaction, you immediately need to contact your broker and stop all the transactions from your demat account.
