Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: CDSL

Mains level: NA

Certain services at CDSL (Central Depositories Services India Ltd) were disrupted due to a suspected cyber-attack over the weekend.

What is CDSL?

CDSL, or Central Depositories Services India Ltd, is a government-registered share depository, alongside its other state-owned counterpart National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL).
It was founded in 1999.
It is a Market Infrastructure Institution or MII that is deemed as a crucial part of the capital market structure, providing services to all market participants, including exchanges, clearing corporations, depository participants, issuers and investors.
Share depositories hold shares in an electronic or dematerialised form and are an enabler for securities transactions, playing a somewhat similar role to what banks play in handling cash and fixed deposits.
While banks help customers keep their cash in electronic form, share depositories help consumers store shares in a dematerialised form.

Functions of CDSL

CDSL facilitates holding and transacting in securities in the electronic form and facilitates settlement of trades done on stock exchanges.
These securities include equities, debentures, bonds, Exchange traded Funds (ETFs), units of mutual funds, units of Alternate Investment Funds (AIFs), Certificates of deposit (CDs), commercial papers (CPs), Government Securities (G-Secs), etc.