Demat Accounts: Investors will get facility regarding Demat Account. Now there will be an option to immediately block suspicious activities in the demat account. This is under the circular issued by SEBI. SEBI has instructed all the stock brokers to do this. Apart from this, SEBI has asked brokers to provide the facility to freeze or block trading accounts also.
New Delhi: If you invest in the stock market then there is good news for you. Stock market regulator SEBI has made a plan to provide new facilities to crores of investors in the country. If there are any suspicious activities in your Demat account, you can immediately block it like a debit card. SEBI has issued a circular regarding this. Instructions have been given to all stock brokers in this. At present there are about 12.97 crore demat accounts in the country. As of now, online blocking facility is available in credit and debit cards. Customers can block it through their netbanking or app. Now SEBI is going to provide similar facility to investors on their demat accounts. If any discrepancy is noticed, customers will be able to immediately block their demat account online.
SEBI issued circular
Market regulator SEBI has asked brokerage companies to create a mechanism to allow investors to voluntarily freeze or block their trading accounts. Currently investors have the option to freeze or block transactions in their demat accounts, but not in trading accounts. Market participants said that although the demat option is available, investors hardly use it due to lack of information. This step of SEBI is under the ‘Ease of Investing by Investors’ initiative. The facility to freeze/block accounts when suspicious activities are observed by investors is not currently available with most brokers.
Facility will be available from this day
SEBI has said that there should be detailed guidelines on how brokers should take action when they receive information about freezing and blocking of accounts. SEBI also wants all brokers to inform their clients about this facility. SEBI said, “At times, investors raise issues of suspicious activities in their trading accounts and thus, there is an urgent need to address the situation of facilitating blocking of trading accounts, as it is similar to blocking ATM cards and credit cards. SEBI said that after the process starts on July 1, stock exchanges will have to submit compliance reports about their facilities to the regulator by August 31.
