The Central Depository Bangladesh Limited (CDBL) has discarded 488,000 beneficiary owners (BO) accounts as the account holders did not pay the annual maintenance fees within the stipulated time.

The deadline for paying maintenance fees expired on June 30 this year as per the direction of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

An account holder has to pay a fee of Tk 500 per annum as maintenance fee for a single account.

The CDBL closed the accounts which does not hold any share and suspended which contain shares as they failed to pay fees in due time as per the instruction from the SEC, an official of CDBL said.

The suspended accounts will be active again once the account holders pay the fees.

The CDBL on March 18 sent letters to the brokers of twin bourses asking them to collect fees in advanced by June 30, being directed by the market regulator.

More than 3.1 million BO accounts are active under Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges as on Sunday, after renewal by June 30 this year, according to CDBL.

A total of 194,000 new BO account has been opened from January June 30 this year.

                                                                                                                                        News: Daily Sun/Bangladesh/ July-04-2011