Discrepancy

In trading and financial markets, a discrepancy refers to an inconsistency, mismatch, or difference between two sets of data, records, or values that should logically be identical — such as a difference between a trader's records and the broker's contract notes, a mismatch between settlement amounts and bank credits, a divergence between a company's audited accounts and exchange filings, or an inconsistency between reported trading volumes and actual orders executed. In the context of Indian capital markets, discrepancies arise in multiple forms: order execution discrepancies (where the executed price or quantity differs from what the investor intended), settlement discrepancies (mismatches between shares credited to the Demat account and shares purchased), financial statement discrepancies (differences between standalone and consolidated accounts or between SEBI filings and annual report numbers), and KYC discrepancies (inconsistencies between investor details across different financial accounts). SEBI and the exchanges have robust reconciliation frameworks — including daily settlement statements, contract notes, Demat holding statements, and margin fund statements — specifically designed to identify and resolve trading discrepancies promptly. For investors, reconciling monthly Demat and trading account statements with their own transaction records is essential for detecting discrepancies early — undetected discrepancies in securities holdings or fund balances could indicate data errors, system failures, or in serious cases, unauthorised transactions that should be reported immediately to the broker and SEBI's SCORES platform.