Mumbai, July 21 -- Indian brokerages are grappling with a paradox. More people are opening new demat accounts to trade in the stock market, but a smaller share of them are trading regularly.

Active clients made up 26.32% of India's 15.2 crore demat accounts in FY2024. That share dropped to 19.1% in the three months through June of fiscal 2027, even though the total number of demat accounts had jumped to 23.2 crore, a Mint analysis showed.

The analysis was based on data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

In fiscal 2026, the active client ratio relative to demat accounts fell the most, by 5.22 percentage points, to 20.1%, when compared to the preceding year. The figure has contin...