- lead - Everything it does today is shaped by one recurring approach: it uses its parent bank’s vast branch network and customer base as a distribution engine, sharing the revenue it generates from those customers with the bank on a 60:40 (Bank: Company) basis.
Business segments
Three engines, all fee-based, built on a single distribution backbone - stock broking for execution, depository services for custody, and merchant banking with product distribution for advisory and recurring commissions - each marketed through the branches of its parent, Indian Bank.
1. Stock broking: the transaction engine
The company earns a brokerage fee every time a client buys or sells a stock or derivative on the NSE or BSE, with nearly two-thirds of its activity coming from this business.
- Execution, not advice - it provides the platform and membership to execute trades on the equity and derivatives segments of the NSE and the equity and derivatives segments of the BSE, recognising brokerage income on the trade date itself.
- The parent bank fills the funnel - under a formal arrangement, the company markets its broking accounts to Indian Bank’s customers through the bank’s own branches, and shares the resulting brokerage income 60:40 in the bank’s favour for as long as the client account stays active.
- A growing, if modest, account base - the broking client book has expanded from roughly 28,000 accounts in FY21 to over 50,000 by FY25, generating a turnover of Rs. 12067.72 crores in FY24.
- Technology as a defensive spend - facing disruption from zero-brokerage online platforms, it invested in its own web and mobile trading front-end, a payment gateway, and a fully digital account-opening process to stay relevant.
2. Depository participant services: the custody engine
It acts as a digital locker for securities, earning annual maintenance fees and transaction charges from over 91,000 demat accounts - its largest client pool.
- Custody for a fee - registered with both NSDL and CDSL, it maintains securities accounts for institutions and retail customers, collecting annual maintenance charges and transaction charges on completion of transactions.
- Bought, not just built - the account base nearly doubled in FY21 when it acquired the entire depository business of the erstwhile Allahabad Bank, bringing in 33,406 demat accounts in a single transaction.
- A physical footprint for a digital product - to service those acquired accounts, it opened new service terminals in Kolkata, Varanasi, Kanpur, Lucknow, and Patna, while also adding terminals in Bhubaneswar and Surat for wider reach, even as it shut down a few non-viable ones.
- Fed by the same partnership - like broking, depository services are marketed to Indian Bank’s customers through the bank’s branch network under the same revenue-sharing framework.
3. Merchant banking and distribution: the advisory and recurring-commission engine
It helps companies raise money and then sells mutual funds to investors, earning one-time advisory fees and trail commissions that keep paying as long as the investor stays invested.
- Fund-raising for companies - registered with SEBI as a Merchant Banker, it earns issue management, placement, and underwriting fees by helping SMEs and large corporates raise capital.
- Advice beyond fund-raising - its advisory practice extends to mergers and acquisitions, due diligence, business and share valuation, corporate secretarial services, and even IT risk management, with fees recognised on hitting contractual milestones.
- A commission stream that endures - it distributes mutual funds as an AMFI-registered intermediary, and when those sales come through Indian Bank’s branches, the commission is split 60:40 in the bank’s favour, with the revenue stream continuing for the life of the client’s investment.
- A two-way street with the parent - the company also acts as a commission agent for Indian Bank itself, earning fees by sourcing leads for the bank’s own retail products like home loans and vehicle loans.
Group structure and partners
The company is a listed government entity whose strategy is inseparable from its parent, Indian Bank - the bank owns it, houses its staff, and provides the distribution network that feeds all three business lines.
- Indian Bank is the promoter and holds a 64.84% stake, making Indbank a Government Company; it held over 2.87 crore equity shares as of March 2026 with no encumbrance on those shares.
- The core commercial relationship is a board- and shareholder-approved arrangement where the company markets its broking, depository, and mutual fund products to the bank’s customers, sharing revenue 60:40 in the bank’s favour for the life of each client account.
- The operational entanglement runs deep: the company pays rent and electricity to Indian Bank, pays it commission as a channel partner, earns interest on deposits placed with it, pays interest on borrowings from it, and has three officers on deputation from the bank within its roughly 100-person workforce.
- The company has no subsidiaries of its own, and its only fellow subsidiary is Ind Bank Housing Limited.