Dematerialisation Request Form (DRF)

A Dematerialisation Request Form (DRF) is the official document submitted by an investor to their Depository Participant (DP) to initiate the conversion of physical share certificates into electronic Demat form — a process regulated by SEBI and the depositories NSDL and CDSL. The DRF contains details including the investor's name, Demat account number, the company name, ISIN of the security, and the face value and quantity of shares being submitted for dematerialisation. The investor submits the completed DRF along with the original physical share certificates (duly defaced to prevent reuse) to the DP. The DP verifies the documents, generates a Dematerialisation Request Number (DRN), and forwards the request to the company's Registrar and Transfer Agent (RTA). Upon verification by the RTA that the certificates are genuine and unencumbered, the equivalent number of shares is credited electronically to the investor's Demat account — typically within 15 to 30 days. In India, while most shares are now traded in electronic form since the SEBI mandate for Demat trading in 1996, some investors still hold old physical certificates for legacy holdings in companies that have changed names, undergone mergers, or been listed for decades — making the DRF process periodically relevant for converting these into tradeable electronic form.