KARACHI, Sept 23: Central Depository Company (CDC) will use Habib Bank’s nationwide branch network to provide the investor account service (IAS) to capital market investors.

An agreement between CDC and HBL was sign recently in this regard. The company started the IAS in 1999 and the service has grown tremendously over a period of six years. As a result, today the company has a patronage of more than 32,000 investors. Investors’ favourable response for the IAS has led the company to expand this service all over the country.

This initiative on the part of CDC will go a long way to broaden the investor base in the country and will provide remote investors an opportunity to be a part of the capital market. Through this extended service the clients will be enabled to operate their IAS account as well as their bank account from the same window, thereby making the product more efficient and convenient for the clients.

In the first phase, the CDC IAS would be made available through limited branches of HBL in Karachi and Lahore but will be expanded countrywide soon afterwards. CDC and HBL have plans to introduce this service to Middle Eastern countries in the near future as well.

The CDC IAS provides retail investors the benefit of safe and secure custody of their securities. Investor accounts, unlike sub accounts (opened and controlled by stock brokers), are directly operated on the instructions of investors. Therefore, the investors have direct and complete control over their stock portfolio.

In order to create awareness and education, CDC held a series of investment roadshows in small cities. So far, it had conducted four roadshows in Peshawar, Sialkot, Hyderabad and Quetta.—APP