National Security Depository Ltd. was incorporated on April 27, 2012, as 'NSDL Depository Limited' at Mumbai as a Public Limited Company pursuant to a Certificate of Incorporation. The Company is a SEBI registered market infrastructure institution (MII) offering a wide range of products and services to the financial and securities markets in India. The Company commenced operations through a Certificate of Commencement of Business dated May 16, 2012, issued by the RoC.
The depository business has been in operation for more than 26 years, having commenced in November 1996, with the name 'National Securities Depository Limited', which later on was renamed as NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited and is currently known as Protean eGov Technologies Limited. Following introduction of the Depositories Act in 1996, the Company pioneered dematerialization of securities in India in November 1996. Through Scheme of Arrangement, the depository undertaking was demerged from Protean and transferred and vested into with Company, as a going concern. Resulting to Scheme of Arrangement, name of Company was changed from 'NSDL Depository Limited' to 'National Securities Depository Limited', vide a fresh Certificate of Incorporation issued by the RoC, on January 3, 2013. As of now, NSDL are 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.
As a depository, Company provide a robust depository framework that enables market participants to participate in the financial and securities markets in India. Their depository facilitates securities to be held in digital form by investors through accounts known as 'Demat Accounts' held 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 depository business, NSDL operate 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 maintain complete records of the ownership of securities held in dematerialised form with them on behalf of the issuer entity. It provide 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 their systems.
In October 2018, the Company launched a facility for availing digital loans against securities; in 2021, it launched digital commercial paper issuance process. During FY 2022, it launched blockchain based market platform to monitor security and covenants related to issuance of bonds.
The Company is proposing an Initial Public Offer of 57,260,001 Equity Shares through Offer for Sale.