A bank holds your funds, and just like that, a depository contains your financial assets. A depository is a financial institute that does this and you have to pay certain dp charges to open an account with a depository participant linked to a main depository. The depository has the responsibility of keeping your financial assets like bonds, mutual funds, stocks, and other assets in dematerialized format safe.
India has two primary depositories – NSDL (National Securities Depository Limited) and CSDL (Central Depository Services Limited).