Starting April 1, physical shares to take place in dematerialised form

Moves to ease out physical share certificates have borne some fruit, but majority of the listed companies still have shareholders having their stake in physical form. 

A Business Standard analysis showed that 98.6 per cent of companies had shareholders who held their stocks in the form of physical share certificates. 

Dematerialisation allows shares to be held electronically. This is the preferred mode of holding shares today. But some people prefer to hold physical share certificates — a hold-out from the time electronic accounts were not in vogue, people say.  Such share certificates account for over Rs 2.9 trillion in value as