NSDL predicts demat accounts to surpass Europe, Americas population by 2047

India's demat account base has grown from 5 crore in 2020 to over 23 crore by 2026, and could surpass the combined populations of Europe and the Americas by 2047, NSDL Chief Business Officer Sameer Patil said at the AIBI Mid-Term conference on September 23, 2026. He attributed the growth to technology that extended market participation beyond metro cities to smaller towns. NSDL now holds assets worth over Rs 550 lakh crore, operates through 57,000 service centres covering 99.9 per cent of Indian pin codes, and hosts over 1.20 lakh issuers.

The Hindu Businessline reported Patil's remarks on DMAT 2.0, launched at the Global Fintech Festival, describing it as tokenisation of corporate bonds backed by Central Bank Digital Currency, developed jointly by SEBI and RBI. LiveLaw.in offered a detailed legal analysis of Demat 2.0, explaining the shift from Demat 1.0's electronic record-keeping to a programmable securities infrastructure using permissioned Distributed Ledger Technology and wholesale CBDC. The article emphasised that SEBI has clarified this tokenisation does not create unregulated crypto-assets but is an advanced architecture under existing statutes. Patil said India's capital market history dates to 1875 and credited regulatory support from SEBI for attracting investors.