The Central Depository Services (India) Limited (CDSL) has become the first…

A depository is an institution that holds an investor's securities (shares, bonds, mutual-fund units) in electronic, dematerialised form, and the account in which those electronic securities are held is called a Demat (dematerialised) account. India has two depositories — CDSL and NSDL.

Central Depository Services (India) Limited (CDSL) is a depository — an institution in the business of holding securities electronically. The accounts it opens for investors to hold those securities are therefore Demat accounts. When it crossed the milestone of 6 crore (60 million) such accounts (in 2022), it became the first depository in India to reach that figure.

Current, Savings and Recurring accounts are bank deposit products that hold money, not securities, and are opened with banks — not depositories. An NRI account is a residency-based bank account category (e.g. NRE/NRO), again for money held at a bank. None of these are the account type a depository registers; only the Demat account fits.