The market capitalisation share of these companies is around 85 percent of the total market capitalisation, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sources said.

The electronic trading settlement system, which eliminates risk of fake or soiled shares, made its debut in the country's capital market on January 24, 2004 with the shares of Square Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

Under the CDS, which is operated by Central Depository Bangladesh Ltd (CDBL), all paper-based share certificates are turned into electronic ones and transactions are held electronically. Listed companies do not need to maintain a full-fledged shares department at their offices as the CDBL performs all the depository and transfer-related jobs.

The demutualisation process of shares is now in a sound state, said Farhad Ahmed, executive director (Supervision and Regulation of Markets Intermediaries Department) of SEC.

"It is a good sign that the companies are willingly joining the CDS," the SEC official commented.

A total of 360,908 beneficiary owner (BO) accounts were opened for electronic trading settlement while 12.02 crore shares excluding primary shares, rights shares and bonus shares were demutualised up to June 30 this year.

During the period, the capital market watchdog has issued certificates to 179 companies as depository participants of which 158 are now active.

Following the opening of some fake and irregular depository accounts, the SEC on April 2 this year issued a directive to close all fake accounts and turn the irregular accounts into regular ones.

As per the directive, a total of 63,150 fake depository accounts were closed and 9,287 BO accounts were made regular accounts.