The depository participant, which has over 4,000 retail accounts in the depository, has gone a step ahead and announced that it will not take any account opening fee, dematerialisation and custody fee for 43 securities (in addition to the 10 announced earlier by Sebi), till such time these scrips are included by Sebi in the compulsory demat trading list.

For those clients who had joined the depository by paying the hitherto applicable account opening charge of Rs 300, custody charges will be waived off till March, 1999. The move by Geojit, which has been one of the most proactive depository participants, is expected to be followed up by several other DPs, feel depository sources.

``By now, atleast once you have suffered losses due to bad delivery and consequent auctionsfor no fault of yours. Our outdated system of handling paper certificates is to be blamed for this. To relieve you of these hardships, Sebi has decided to allow trading with respect to 10 securities only in demat form from January 4 onwards. Geojit has further identified the following 43 shares in which we will not accept any sale order in the physical form from January 4 onwards,'' Geojit Securities has informed its 10,000-odd clients.

The directive has been restricted to sales only given the lack of liquidity in the exclusive demat segment which could restrict purchase of demat shares. However, demat shares can be sold in the physical segment as well. The securities identified by Geojit include, ACC, Arvind Mills, ABB, Bajaj Auto, BoB, Cadbury, Castrol, Dr Reddy's, Glaxo, Hero Honda, Hindalco, HLL, ITC, MTNL, M&M, NIIT, Reliance, Tisco and Telco.

The waiver of all other charges is aimed at making entry into the depository mode more attractive for investors. Geojit used to charge an account openingfee of Rs 300 which has now been waived off.

``Custody charges are being waived off as with the reduction in these charges by the depository to 2 basis points or Rs 20 per year on a portfolio of Rs one lakh, it makes little sense for a DP to even spend the time and effort to recover these charges. For a broker DP, the revenue is going to flow from transaction charges and the brokerage. We should therefore see more broker DPs cutting down custody charges,'' said a market source.