What is ISIN in shares?

International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) is a unique code which identifies each security, while buying and selling of shares. It is a 12 character alpha-numeric code that uniquely identifies a security.

An ISIN uniquely identifies a security, such as stocks, bonds and more. ISIN is necessary for transfer of share. ISIN is issued by National Numbering Agency (NNA), designed by ISO (International Organization Of standardization). In India, SEBI acts as NNA.

Depositories shall activate the ISINs only on the date of commencement of trading on the stock exchanges.

For example we will consider ISIN of Bharti: INE397D01024

• The first two characters represent country code (IN)
• The third digit is for identifying the issuer type (E)
• The next four characters represent company identity (397D). Here, the first 3 characters are numeric. The fourth character is alpha character.
• The next two characters represent security type for a given issuer (01).
• The next two characters are serially issued for each security of the issuer entering the system (02).
• Last digit is double-add-double check digit (4).

ISIN code is helpful when investors wants to freeze his account or particular number of securities under an ISIN for any given period of time.

In case of dematerialization, separate DRF has to be filled for each ISIN. Equity-fully paid up, equity-partly paid up, equity with differential voting /dividend rights issued by the same issuer will have different ISINs.

GoodReturns.in