Purpose of having DEMAT account in India

As a resident India interested in investment DEMAT account has becomes equally important as a regular savings bank account. DEMAT account can be opened with any authorized banks. One of the most popular DEMAT platform is the icicidirect.com
This is s DEMAT provision from ICICI Bank that can be used for trading. As such DEMAT is not limited to stock trading. There are umpteen number of instruments that can be traded using DEMAT account
1) Stock Trading - Primary purpose of holding a DEMAT account is to buy and sell stocks of Indian companies. This involves day trading, purchase and sale of stocks directly, with help of traders etc
2) Mutual fund Trading - Like stocks mutual fund units can be purchased on daily basis. The NAV ( Net Asset Value) of a mutual fund unit keeps changing on daily basis. This depends on price fluctuation of underlying stocks
3) Purchase of bond - Bonds are debt instruments offered by governments, public sector companies, private sector companies. These are debt instruments. In simple term you have lended a portion of your money to the borrower which is bond issuer. The bond works on coupoun rate which in plain terms is interest rate for tenue of say 1,2,5,7,10 years. These are listed in stock exchanges like BSE and can be purchased via DEMAT account
4) Purchase of debentures - Debentures are another class of debt instruments. They can be converted to stocks as well as non-convertible debentures. They yield better than fixed deposits and can be purchased using DEMAT account

5) Purchase IPO stocks - IPO the initial public offering is a state when a firm enters stock exchange with a price determination of stocks. One popular IPO that happened in 2012 was facebook with IPO price of $35. Though there had been some hiccups, it is holding stable now. Such IPO Indian stocks in India can be purchased using DEMAT account