In a recent announcement, the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) proudly disclosed that the number of its unique registered investors has exceeded the remarkable 80 million mark. This extraordinary achievement reflects the burgeoning interest in India's stock market. With a total of 149 million client codes registered with the exchange, some clients have engaged with multiple trading members.

The 80 million unique PAN (Permanent Account Number) investors signify an impressive outreach to approximately 50 million distinct Indian households. This remarkable statistic equates to a substantial 17% of Indian households actively participating in the nation's stock market, facilitated by NSE's expansive network of trading members across the country.

Highlighting the geographical distribution of this investor surge, NSE reported that 45% of the recent one million unique PAN-based investor registrations originated from cities beyond the top 100 urban centers. Notably, states in the northern region accounted for 43% of these registrations, with western states contributing 27%, southern states 17%, and eastern states 13% to the final one million registrations.

Prominent cities in this surge included Delhi (including the National Capital Region) making up 7% of the total, followed by Mumbai (including Thane and Raigad) at 4.6%, and Pune at 1.7%, as confirmed by NSE.

Attributing this remarkable growth in participants to the momentum witnessed in the capital markets, NSE emphasized the impressive performance of benchmark equity indices. Over the past three years, the Nifty 50 index delivered annualized returns of 22.66%, while the Nifty 500 index posted annualized returns of 24.89% (all returns as of September 26, 2023). These numbers underline the long-term and broad-based nature of market performance, extending well beyond a select few securities.

The first half of the current fiscal year alone witnessed 7.6 million new investor registrations, setting a strong pace for the year. For context, the numbers in previous fiscal years stood at 13 million in FY23, 19 million in FY22, and 9 million in FY21. This remarkable growth underscores the impact of technology, which has streamlined the investor onboarding process and provided self-paced learning modules to educate the masses, enhancing the overall investment experience in financial products on the Exchange.

Furthermore, the secondary market has experienced increased liquidity in select products, thanks to greater depth and improved ease of entry and exit for investors, driven by the transition to T+1 settlement in the Capital Market Segment.

Sriram Krishnan, Chief Business Development Officer at NSE, emphasized, "Technology has revolutionized investor onboarding, making self-paced learning accessible to a broader audience and enriching the overall financial product investment experience on the Exchange."

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