How your Dmat Mutual Funds and Shares “ISIN” structured?

Have you ever noticed mutual funds, shares, bonds or any securities held in your Dmat accounts are mentioned with unique code called ISIN? When you look at the holding statement, you will find that each type of securities are identified with unique code called ISIN.  So in this post we will look at it’s structure.

ISIN stands for “International Securities Identification Number”. It is unique number issued in any of the International Standards Organisation (ISO) member countries. In India SEBI is authorized to issue ISIN to securities held with NSDL. CDSL authorized to issue ISIN for the securities held under it. For Government securities or G-Sec RBI is the authorized to issue ISIN. For your information, in India NSDL and CDSL are the only Depositories who handles demat of all your securities.

ISIN constitutes 12 digit alpha-numeric numbering method.  It consists of three components, a pre-fix, a basic number and a check digit. The pre-fix is two letter country code. For India it stands as IN. Basic number consists of 9 alpha-numeric characters. Last digit consists of check digit. Check digit is calculated like the method of “Modulus 10 Double Add Double”, which I think not required for you. But check digit establishes that assigned ISIN is valid.

Now let us look at this code structure with one example. I have chosen HDFC Top 200 Fund Growth. ISIN for the same is “INF179K01BE2”. Here as I told earlier, first two digits stands for country. Hence first two digit points that this ISIN is to India. Next to “IN” we find “F” which is for Mutual funds. Below are the codes given to identify the third digit of ISIN. It specify the Issuer type.

Next four digits (the fourth to seventh character) “179K” stands for HDFC Mutual Fund company. In this first 3 characters are numeric and fourth character is alpha character. The numbering begins with “001A” and continues till “999A” and proceeds to “001B”.

The next two characters (the eighth and ninth character) are numeric and represents security type for the given issuer. Below is the list of security type. Hence as per below list for HDFC Top 200 Fund it is “01”.

The next two characters (tenth and eleventh) are serially issued for each security of the issuer entering the system, which is “BE” for above fund. Finally “2” stands for check digit. Same way all the securities held in dmat form are allotted with unique ISIN. To find the ISIN for the mutual funds held under NSDL and CDSL can be found in below links

NSDL and CDSL

Hope the above information will be useful about understanding the basics of ISIN.