Retail investors can open ‘gilt account’ via online portal

The Reserve Bank of India on Monday said retail investors can open a ‘Retail Direct Gilt Account’ (RDG Account) through an ‘online portal‘, which will be provided under its RBI Retail Direct’ scheme.

Under the scheme, the ‘online portal’ will also give registered users facilities such as access to primary issuance of government securities (G-Secs) and NDS-OM (Negotiated Dealing System — Order Matching (NDS-OM). The scheme will be a one-stop solution to facilitate investment in G-Secs by individual investors.

The RBI, in a statement, said the date of commencement of the scheme will be announced at a later date.

In February, the central bank had announced that as part of continuing efforts to increase retail participation in G-Secs and to improve ease of access, retail investors will be provided online access to the G-Sec market along with the facility to open their gilt securities account (‘Retail Direct’) with the RBI.

To encourage retail participation in G-Sec market, the government and RBI have so far introduced non-competitive bidding in primary auctions, permitted stock exchanges to act as aggregators/ facilitators for retail investors and allowed odd-lot segment in the NDS-OM secondary market, have been taken in the past.