The National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Friday said its unique registered investors have surpassed nine crore, with the latest one crore additions taking place in just five months.
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The investor base has seen more than a three-fold jump in the last five years, facilitated by rapid growth in digitisation, rising investor awareness, financial inclusion and strong market performance.
"The unique registered investors on the National Stock Exchange of India crossed nine crore on February 29, 2024," the bourse said in a statement.
Besides, the total number of client codes registered with the exchange reached 16.9 crore. This includes all client registrations done till date. Notably, clients can register with more than one trading member.
Unique investor registrations at NSE have seen an accelerating trend over the last few years. While the increase from six to seven crore unique investors took about nine months, the next crore investors came in eight months and the jump from eight to nine crore took only five months.
Daily new unique registrations have averaged between nearly 47,000 in October 2023 to 78,000 in January this year.
From the beginning of FY24 till February 29 this year, the Nifty 50 has given a return of 27 per cent, while Nifty 500 delivered 38 per cent return over the same period.
"It is encouraging to see that the latest one crore new investors have been on boarded on the exchange in the shortest time of five months," Sriram Krishnan, Chief Business Development Officer at NSE, said.
He further said that deepening participation in various exchange traded financial instruments such as equities, exchange traded funds (ETFs), REITs, InvITs, Government Bonds, Corporate Bonds, etc. can be attributed to some of the key drivers such as simplification of KYC process over the years, financial literacy imparted by all stakeholders through investor awareness programmes and sustained positive market sentiment over the long term.
Of the new investors that have entered the market since October 2023, nearly 42 per cent hailed from North India, followed by West India (28 per cent), South India (17 per cent) and East India (13 per cent).
Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra contributed the largest number of new investors during this period, together accounting for more than a quarter of all new additions.
Currently, the highest number of unique registered investors are from Maharashtra with 1.6 crore, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 97 lakh and Gujarat with 81 lakh such investors.
This increase in new investors has come across states, with all but 33 pin codes having at least one individual directly investing in the market.