How to Transfer Shares from One Demat Account to another?

Introduction:

You have been trading in the stock market for two years. You have a single Demat account holding all the shares you have invested into to date. Your investment portfolio includes Few blue-chip stocks (top companies) and a few smallcap stocks that you had bought for medium-term or short-term investment. While analysing, you realise that it might be easier to review if the shares were segregated. You look for options to do so and see that you can hold multiple Demat accounts with different Depository Participants (DP) simultaneously. You get two more Demat accounts in your name, and now you want to know the procedure to transfer the shares in the accounts as per your convenience, often facilitated through a demat account app.

What is a Demat account?

You can buy shares and other financial securities like bonds, ETFs, and Government securities and store them safely in your Demat Account. The difference between a Demat account and a bank account is that a Demat account deals with shares, and in the bank account, you can hold cash. It is also possible to transfer your shares from one Demat account to another. When you transfer shares from one Demat account to another, the ownership remains with you only, so there is no tax implication.

But what can be the possible reasons for such transfers?

Additional read: ICICI Direct- Demat account

Reasons for wanting to transfer shares from one Demat account to another:

You may need to move shares from one Demat account to another. There could be a variety of reasons for this. Here are a few examples:

1. You may have multiple Demat accounts and wish to consolidate your stock holdings into a single account
2. You may want to segregate the shares you hold into different accounts. You may do so when you want to have separate portfolios basis your financial goals, such as retirement, child education, or marriage
3. To save money on your current brokerage, you may want to switch from your existing broker to a discount broker
4. To increase your trading volume, you may wish to change to a full-service broker from a discount broker to receive more daily reports and tips

If you want to transfer the shares due to one of the reasons mentioned above, read further to know the following steps.

Procedure for transferring shares from one Demat account to another:

Your Demat account is credited and debited when you buy and sell stocks in the stock market. Apart from that, you can also transfer shares between Demat accounts.

In India, the two depositories, NSDL (National securities depository limited) and CDSL (Central Depository services limited) offer dematerialisation services. Based on this fact, there are two types of transfers:

1. Inter-Depository transfer, where the shares are transferred among accounts with two different depositories
2. Intra- Depository transfer, where the transfer in between accounts held with the same depository; either CDSL or NSDL

You must note the following facts-

1. The transfer of shares will not amount to capital gains or capital loss due to the transfer.
2. Share transfer will not cause any change in the beneficial ownership of shares.
3. Your broker might charge a minimal amount as transfer processing fees.
4. There's no tax implication on share transfer because the ownership remains unchanged.
5. You must provide an explicit and legitimate reason for transferring the shares to another person if they fall in a specified category without any consideration. There is no tax liability if transferred to your spouse or children and supported by a valid gift deed.

You'll need a Debit Instruction Slip (DIS Booklet) from your Depository Participant to transfer shares online. EASIEST is a CDSL feature that allows you to transfer shares from one Demat account to another online. Before you can begin, you must first register on this website. The following is a description of the procedure:

1. To register online, go to the 'Register Online' link.
2. Choose an option. EASIEST
3. Fill in the required details.
4. Take a printout and hand it over to the depository (DP)
5. The DP will then send it to the central depository, where your information will be verified. Within a few days, you will receive the login credentials via email.
6. Log in to see a list of your brokers. You can now transfer your shares online.

Additional reads: ICICI Direct- Share transfer

In comparison to the offline mode, an online transfer is more convenient and faster. Transferability thus adds to the convenience of a Demat account to handle shares and related operations to ease trading.