National Securities Depository Limited was incorporated on April 27, 2012, as ‘NSDL Depository Limited’ at Mumbai as a public limited company under the Companies Act, 1956, pursuant to a certificate of incorporation, issued by the RoC and obtained a certificate of commencement of business dated May 16, 2012, issued by the RoC. Its depository business has been in operation for more than 28 years, having commenced in November 1996, under the name of the National Securities Depository Limited, which was renamed as NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited and is currently known as Protean eGov Technologies Limited (Protean). Pursuant to the Scheme of Arrangement, the depository undertaking was demerged from Protean and was transferred and vested in the Company, as a going concern. Subsequent to the Scheme of Arrangement, the name of the company was also changed from ‘NSDL Depository Limited’ to ‘National Securities Depository Limited’, and a fresh certificate of incorporation was issued by the RoC, recording the change in name on January 3, 2013.

National Securities Depository (NSDL) is a SEBI registered market infrastructure institution (MII) offering a wide range of products and services to the financial and securities markets in India. As a depository, it provides a robust depository framework that enables market participants to participate in the financial and securities markets in India. It also plays a central role in developing products and services that will continue to address the growing needs of the financial services industry in India. Using innovative and flexible technology systems, NSDL works to support investors, brokers, issuers and other market participants in the Indian capital markets and aims at ensuring the safety and soundness of Indian securities market by developing settlement solutions that increase efficiency, minimize risk and reduce costs.

Its depository facilitates securities to be held in digital form by investors through accounts known as ‘Demat Accounts’ held with it through depository participants. This includes securities held in dematerialized form with various asset classes namely equities (listed equity and unlisted equity), preference shares, warrants, funds (mutual funds, REITs, InvITs and AIFs), debt instruments (corporate debt, commercial paper, certificate of deposit, pass through certificate, security receipts, government securities, sovereign gold bonds, municipal debt, treasury bill) and electronic gold receipts.

As part of its depository business, it operates a centralized digital book-keeping system that facilitates the holders of securities to hold and transfer their securities in electronic form and enables settlement solutions in an efficient and cost-effective manner. It provides depository services to investors, issuers, depository participants, financial institutions, stockbrokers, custodians, clearing corporations and other market intermediaries and have established an ecosystem for these entities to integrate with its systems.

Business area of the company

The company is the largest depository in India in terms of number of issuers, number of active instruments, market share in demat value of settlement volume and value of assets held under custody. Through its Subsidiaries, NDML and NPBL, it offers a range of IT-enabled solutions through multiple verticals such as e-governance, payments solutions, collaborative industry solutions, regulatory platforms, KYC solutions, insurance repository services and digital banking solutions, amongst others.

Services of the company

Basic services

• Account maintenance 
• Dematerialisation
• Rematerialisation
• Market Transfers
• Off Market Transfers
• Inter-Depository Transfers
• Margin Pledge
• Transmission
• Corporate Actions

Value Added Services

• NSDL Mobile App Speede
• SPEED-e
• IDeAS (Internet-based Demat Account Statement)
• e-Voting
• NSDL Demat Gateway e-DIS (Electronic Delivery Instruction Slip)
• STeADY
• Depository Account Validation (DAN)
• SPICE (Submission of Power of attorney based Instructions for Clients Electronically)
• Automatic Delivery Out Instructions (Auto DOs)
• Dividend Distribution
• Stock Lending and Borrowing
• SMS alert 

Awards, accreditations or recognitions

• 2017: Awarded ‘Central Securities Depository of the Year’ at the Asian Banker Financial Markets Awards.
• 2023: Awarded as the ‘Best Blended Learning Strategy of the Year’ at the L&D Confex Awards 2023.
• 2024: Awarded for innovation ‘Security and Covenant Monitoring Platform’ at the Banking Frontiers - 13th Finnoviti Conclave & Awards 2024.

History and milestones

• 2014: Pursuant to the implementation of the FPI regime in 2014 as per SEBI notification dated January 7, 2014, SEBI authorised the Company to carry out activities in relation to FPIs, on behalf of SEBI. 
• 2014: Value of securities held by it in dematerialised form crossed Rs 100,000 billion.
• 2015: Launched the consolidated accounts statement which is a single account statement for the transactions and holdings in an investor’s demat account(s) at both the company and CDSL as well as in units of Mutual Funds held in statement of account form. 
• 2016: Incorporation of NPBL.
• 2017: The company collaborated with a private sector bank for providing instant digital loan against securities.
• 2017: NPBL received the license to set up the payment bank.
• 2020: Number of demat accounts with the company crossed 20 million.
• 2020: Value of securities held in dematerialised form at the company crossed Rs 2,00,000 billion.
• 2021: The company provided the issuing platform for the first digitisation of commercial paper issuance in India, in collaboration with a private sector bank.
• 2021: Value of securities held in dematerialised form at the company crossed Rs 300,000 billion ($4,000,000 million).
• 2022: Launched ‘Market ka Eklavya- Express’, the company’s online investment awareness programme across 75 Indian cities.
• 2024: Value of securities held in dematerialised form at the cfompany crossed Rs 500,000 billion ($6,000,000 million).
• 2024: Launched NSDL YUP (YUva Plan) with zero settlement fees per debit instruction for 36 months from the date of opening a new demat account for individuals below the age of 24.
• 2025: Launched the unifying features in the investor apps of Depositories (SPEED-e by NSDL).
• 2025: Successful implementation of Direct Payout Settlement for securities.