Bangalore, Mar 9: The Stock Holding Corporation of India Ltd (SHCIL) will shift its focus to individual investors from institutional investors. Disclosing this B Virupaksha Goud, chairman and managing director, SHCIL said, ``Dematerialisation is a part of the capital market reform process.'' Admitting that demat will affect SHCIL's bottomline as it is presently strong in the physical segment, Goud said the aim of the corporation would be to attract more small investors. As part of this process, SHCIL will set up one-stop kiosks at suitable locations wherein the investor would be able to undertake all business under one umbrella.``The investor will be provided with a smartcard which will also have an identification number. Once the customer accesses the network he will be able to buy, sell or get information on companies, share movements, etc. The customer can then decide accordingly what they want to do,'' he added.
``Individual investors are the kings and the demat offers a safe method of possessingshares unlike in the past where shares were lost or misplaced in transit,'' he said.
The SHCIL will also as part of its expansion plan set up offices in more centres. At present, it has offices in Mumbai, Calcutta, Delhi and Chennai. Goud expressed the view that a full-fledged office would be set up in Bangalore soon. ``We will have a small office operating out of the Bangalore Stock Exchange (BgSE) premises manned by a skeleton staff. The aim of this offcie will be to collect and educate investors and brokers about the demat process,'' he added.
Emphasising that trading should percolate to scrips other than the group A, particularly to B1 and even B3, he said that only then the capital market would be buoyant. ``If the capital market is buoyant, the industry will grow and in turn the government will earn more revenue'', he added.
Goud, however, refuted charges that SHCIL functioning was almost like public sector. ``Even though we are part of the public sector we operate like a private sector company.There is transparency in our functioning,'' he added.
Earlier in his presentation, Goud said that SHCIL has the largest demat asset base. The current assets in custody with the corporation stand at Rs 82,000 crore and an equity of Rs 21,005 crore. SHCIL has entered into strategic alliances with Morgan Stanley Trust Company (MSTC) whereby the former acts as a sub-custodian of the latter. In addition, an alliance has also been entered into with the Bank of India (BoI). BoI will extend loans against securities while SHCIL will provide services relating to demat, remat and settlement to the former's clients.
