The temple Trust has opened demat account to enable its followers to offer shares of listed companies as donations.

Mumbai’s Shree Siddhivinayak Temple, which is visited by lakhs of devotees every month, has opened a demat account to enable its followers to offer shares of listed companies as donations.

While initially the electronic platform will only allow donations such as shares of listed entities, going forward it will extend to other financial instruments such as mutual funds, bonds, gold exchange traded funds as well.

The temple Trust has opened its demat account through SBICAP Securities Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SBI Capital Markets Ltd.

A demat account will allow devotees to directly transfer the shares to the temple’s account. Interestingly, many temples face the issue of devotees offering physical share certificates, which are difficult to be used by the temple.

The demat account will allow a seamless transfer to the temple and devotees can avail of this opportunity from anywhere, through an electronic platform.

An agreement to this effect was exchanged between Mani Palvesan, Managing Director , SBICAP Securities and Shri Narendra Murari Rane, Chairman, Shree Siddhivinayak Ganapati Temple Trust.