Old HDFC Shares and Unclaimed Dividends: Exactly What Your HDFC Ltd or HDFC Bank Certificate Is Worth Today

Maybe the dividends from HDFC simply stopped arriving. Maybe you found a share certificate in a file that says Housing Development Finance Corporation Limited — and you have read that HDFC does not exist any more.

Or the certificate says Centurion Bank of Punjab. Times Bank. Bank of Punjab. Lord Krishna Bank.

None of these shares has disappeared. On 1 July 2023, HDFC Ltd merged into HDFC Bank, and every HDFC Ltd shareholder became an HDFC Bank shareholder — at 42 HDFC Bank shares for every 25 HDFC shares. Years earlier, HDFC Bank had absorbed Times Bank and Centurion Bank of Punjab the same way.

And the numbers have grown. One HDFC share from before August 1999 is 336 HDFC Bank shares today. At HDFC Bank’s closing price of ₹739.50 on 21 September 2026, 100 of those old shares are worth about ₹2.48 crore.

This page gives you every ratio behind that, taken from HDFC’s and HDFC Bank’s own filings and records. Where a step rests on a single source, we say so.

Work out your number first. Then read what it takes to actually get these shares into your demat account — the calculation is the easy part.

Is HDFC Ltd the same company as HDFC Bank?

No. They were two separate listed companies until 1 July 2023, when HDFC Ltd merged into HDFC Bank.

HDFC Ltd — full name Housing Development Finance Corporation Limited — was the home-loan company, set up in 1977. HDFC Bank was a separate company that HDFC promoted in 1994; it came to the market with a public issue in 1995. For almost thirty years the two traded side by side, with separate shares, separate dividends and separate registrars.

So first, find your certificate in this table.

How many HDFC Bank shares do I get for my HDFC Ltd shares?

42 HDFC Bank shares for every 25 HDFC Ltd shares you held on 13 July 2023 — and then double that, because of HDFC Bank’s bonus issue in August 2025.

Here is how it happened, from the two companies’ own filings:

• 1 July 2023 — the merger took effect.
• 13 July 2023 — the record date. Everyone on HDFC Ltd’s register that day was owed HDFC Bank shares: 42 shares of ₹1 for every 25 HDFC shares of ₹2.
• 14 July 2023 — HDFC Bank allotted 3,11,03,96,492 new shares to HDFC Ltd’s shareholders.
• 27 August 2025 — record date for HDFC Bank’s one-for-one bonus, the first bonus in the bank’s history.

So each HDFC Ltd share of ₹2 is 3.36 HDFC Bank shares today. 100 HDFC shares became 168 HDFC Bank shares in 2023, and 336 after the bonus.

You received whole shares only. Hold 10 HDFC shares and the arithmetic gives 16.8 HDFC Bank shares — you got 16, and the 0.8 went into a pooled account. HDFC Bank’s shareholding filing for the day of the allotment lists 2,80,531 such ‘fraction shares’. The bonus then turned your 16 into 32.

Check the face value printed on your certificate

If your HDFC certificate is older than 2010, the face value printed on it tells you how many times it has multiplied. HDFC Ltd changed its shares three times before the merger:

• August 1999 — split from ₹100 to ₹10. Every share became ten.
• December 2002 — the first bonus in HDFC’s history, one for one. Allotted on 30 December 2002.
• August 2010 — split from ₹10 to ₹2. Every share became five. Record date 20 August 2010.

One thing to watch with a ₹10 certificate from before December 2002. It was entitled to an equal number of bonus shares, and those were sent out on a separate certificate that many families never received. The entitlement sits on your folio whether or not the paper reached you — which is why the table counts it.

Where the 1999 figure comes from. HDFC’s 1999 split is missing from the usual online share-history lists. It is plain in exchange records: on 16 August 1999 the share price fell from about ₹2,480 to about ₹268 and stayed there, while the number of shares traded each day rose more than tenfold. The 2010 split started from ₹10, so the 1999 split can only have been from ₹100 to ₹10. Your certificate settles it — if it says ₹100, this row is yours.

The 1992 rights issue did not multiply your shares

In 1992 HDFC made a rights issue, not a bonus issue. Shareholders could buy one new share for every two they held — and they had to pay for it. It did not add anything to the shares you already had.

If your family took up those rights, the new shares are on a separate certificate. They were ₹100 shares, so the first row of the table applies to them too. Count the rights certificate on its own; do not use it to multiply the original. Treat 1992 as a bonus and the answer for any holding older than 1992 comes out one-and-a-half times too high.

How many times has HDFC Bank split its shares or issued bonus shares?

HDFC Bank has split its shares twice and issued one bonus. It split from ₹10 to ₹2 in July 2011, from ₹2 to ₹1 in September 2019, and issued a one-for-one bonus in August 2025. HDFC Bank’s own record of every share it has issued since 1994 shows no other bonus.

The ordering trap

HDFC Bank’s 2011 and 2019 splits do not apply to HDFC Ltd shares. HDFC Ltd’s shareholders only joined HDFC Bank in July 2023, after both splits had happened. The only HDFC Bank event that reaches them is the 2025 bonus. HDFC Ltd’s own splits — 1999 and 2010 — are the ones that apply to them.

It works the other way for Centurion Bank of Punjab and Times Bank holders. They joined HDFC Bank before 2011, so they get both splits and the bonus.

Mix up the two companies’ splits and the answer is out by a factor of ten. Always build the count in date order: what happened to your company before the merger, then what happened to HDFC Bank after you joined it.

Which old banks became HDFC Bank, and at what ratio?

Four other banks’ shares ended up as HDFC Bank shares: Times Bank directly, and Centurion Bank, Bank of Punjab and Lord Krishna Bank through Centurion Bank of Punjab.

• Times Bank merged into HDFC Bank in 2000: 1 HDFC Bank share for every 5.75 Times Bank shares, both of ₹10. HDFC Bank allotted 2,34,78,261 shares on 29 March 2000.
• Bank of Punjab merged into Centurion Bank in October 2005: 9 Centurion shares of ₹1 for every 4 Bank of Punjab shares of ₹10, record date 14 October 2005. The combined bank was renamed Centurion Bank of Punjab.
• Lord Krishna Bank merged into Centurion Bank of Punjab in August 2007: 7 shares of ₹1 for every 5 Lord Krishna Bank shares of ₹10, record date 6 September 2007.
• Centurion Bank of Punjab merged into HDFC Bank on 23 May 2008: 1 HDFC Bank share of ₹10 for every 29 Centurion Bank of Punjab shares of ₹1, record date 16 June 2008. HDFC Bank allotted 6,98,83,956 shares on 24 June 2008.

Because all of these holders arrived before 2011, the HDFC Bank ₹10 shares they received have since become 20 each.

The Centurion Bank face-value trap

An old Centurion Bank certificate says ₹10. Do not multiply it by ten.

In February 2004, as part of a restructuring and recapitalisation with Bank Muscat, Centurion Bank cut the face value of its shares from ₹10 to ₹1 by cancelling ₹9 of the capital behind each one (record date 4 February 2004). That was a reduction of capital, not a split. The number of shares stayed exactly the same — 1,000 shares of ₹10 became 1,000 shares of ₹1.

Compare HDFC’s 1999 change from ₹100 to ₹10, where every share did become ten. Both certificates show a bigger face value than today’s shares. The answers are opposite. The 2004 rights issue that followed (2 new shares for every 5, at ₹4 each) was also paid for, so it does not multiply the original either.

Fractions were never rounded up

At every merger step you received whole shares only. 1,000 Times Bank shares gave 173.9 HDFC Bank shares on paper — the holder got 173. That is why the 1,000-share figures above are a few shares lower than a straight multiplication would give.

The quick-reference multiplier

Find your certificate, multiply the number of shares on it by the figure in the second column, and you have your HDFC Bank shares today. For the merged banks, round down: fractions were not issued.

Worked examples

All values use HDFC Bank’s closing price of ₹739.50 on 21 September 2026. The share counts do not change with the price; the rupee value does.

100 HDFC shares bought in 1990 (₹100 certificate)

• August 1999, split ₹100 to ₹10: 1,000 shares
• December 2002, bonus one for one: 2,000
• August 2010, split ₹10 to ₹2: 10,000
• July 2023, merger at 42 for 25: 16,800 HDFC Bank shares
• August 2025, bonus one for one: 33,600 HDFC Bank shares — about ₹2.48 crore

100 HDFC shares bought in 2000 (₹10 certificate)

2002 bonus → 200. 2010 split → 1,000. 2023 merger → 1,680. 2025 bonus → 3,360 HDFC Bank shares, about ₹24.8 lakh.

100 HDFC shares bought in 2015 (₹2 certificate or demat)

2023 merger → 168. 2025 bonus → 336 HDFC Bank shares, about ₹2.5 lakh.

100 HDFC Bank shares from the 1995 public issue

2011 split → 500. 2019 split → 1,000. 2025 bonus → 2,000 HDFC Bank shares, about ₹14.8 lakh.

1,000 Bank of Punjab shares

2005 merger at 9 for 4 → 2,250 Centurion Bank of Punjab shares. 2008 merger at 1 for 29 → 77 HDFC Bank shares of ₹10. 2011 and 2019 splits → 770. 2025 bonus → 1,540 HDFC Bank shares, about ₹11.4 lakh.

1,000 Centurion Bank of Punjab shares

2008 merger at 1 for 29 → 34 HDFC Bank shares of ₹10. Splits → 340. Bonus → 680 HDFC Bank shares, about ₹5.0 lakh.

Which companies do NOT turn into HDFC Bank shares?

Only HDFC Ltd merged into HDFC Bank. The rest of the HDFC family did not, and a few similar names have nothing to do with HDFC at all.

• GRUH Finance — HDFC was its promoter, which is why people assume it became HDFC. It merged into Bandhan Bank instead: 568 Bandhan Bank shares for every 1,000 GRUH shares, record date 17 October 2019. GRUH certificates are a Bandhan Bank claim.
• HDFC Life Insurance and HDFC Asset Management (HDFC AMC) — still listed as separate companies. Their shares are still HDFC Life and HDFC AMC shares.
• HDFC Mutual Fund units — these are fund units, not shares. Unclaimed amounts are claimed from the fund itself, not through HDFC Bank or the IEPF share route.
• Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL) — a different company entirely, despite the similar name.
• Bank of Punjab is not Punjab National Bank or Punjab & Sind Bank. Those are separate public-sector banks, with their own shares.

How do I claim unclaimed HDFC dividends?

If the dividend is less than seven years old, you claim it from the company. If it is older, it has gone to the Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF), and you claim it there with Form IEPF-5.

HDFC Bank’s registrar is Datamatics Business Solutions. HDFC Ltd’s registrar was Link Intime (now MUFG Intime), so older HDFC letters and dividend warrants carry that name. HDFC’s old investor pages — now kept on HDFC Bank’s home-loans website — still list HDFC Ltd’s unclaimed dividends year by year, with a search for unclaimed dividends and unclaimed shares.

Why the dividends may have stopped. Since 1 April 2024, SEBI rules say dividends on shares held on paper are paid only electronically, and only once the folio has PAN, contact details, bank details and a specimen signature registered. If that was never done for your HDFC or HDFC Bank certificates, the dividend is simply held back as unpaid.

Here is the part that matters most. Under Section 124(6) of the Companies Act, when a dividend goes unclaimed for seven years in a row, the shares are moved to the IEPF as well. On the day HDFC Bank allotted the merger shares, its own shareholding filing showed 99,03,622 HDFC Bank shares in the name of the IEPF. Under the IEPF rules, bonus shares on IEPF shares are credited to the IEPF too — so when the 2025 bonus came, every one of those shares was matched by another.

In 2026 HDFC Bank wrote to its shareholders under the IEPF Authority’s second ‘Saksham Niveshak’ campaign (1 April to 9 July 2026), asking them to claim unpaid dividends from 2018-19 onwards before they move to the IEPF. If you have unclaimed HDFC dividends, the shares behind them may be next.

Here is how unclaimed dividends are recovered, from the company or the IEPF.

So you have a number. Now the hard part.

Working out your entitlement is the only easy step. If the shares were sitting quietly in a demat account, you would not be reading this. Usually one of these is true.

Your HDFC Ltd shares were still on paper in July 2023

HDFC Bank issued the merger shares only in electronic form. For HDFC certificates that had not been dematerialised, the HDFC Bank shares were placed in a demat account held by a trustee or escrow agent on the holders’ behalf, under clause 27.9 of the merger scheme. HDFC told physical shareholders this in writing in December 2022. HDFC Bank’s shareholding filing for the allotment day shows 64,78,165 shares under the heading ‘Physical Shares’.

You keep the dividends and the bonus while the shares wait there. To move them, you need a demat account in exactly the name or names on the certificate, and then your demat details and KYC documents go to HDFC Bank’s registrar. The same applies to old HDFC Bank, Times Bank or Centurion certificates that were never converted.

Your shares have gone to the IEPF

For the shares, you file one Form IEPF-5, against HDFC Bank — not HDFC Ltd, which no longer exists. Since October 2025, an entitlement letter from the company must come first, so the claim starts with HDFC Bank’s nodal officer. The claim covers the bonus shares the IEPF received on your behalf. Here is how Form IEPF-5 works, and why claims sit pending for months.

The certificate is lost

A duplicate is possible, but the process changed in 2026. The current rules for a lost share certificate are here.

The original holder has died, or the name does not match

The certificate may be in the name of a parent or grandparent. Or it says ‘S. K. Mehta’ and your PAN says ‘Sanjay Kumar Mehta’. Each is its own procedure: transmission after a death, and fixing a name or signature mismatch.

Size matters here. Since 22 August 2026, SEBI allows simplified transmission papers for physical holdings up to ₹10 lakh per company. An old ₹100 HDFC holding is usually far above that — 100 such shares are about ₹2.5 crore today — so plan for the full set of documents from the start.

Why not just hand the certificate to a local lawyer or agent?

Because a certificate is only worth what is traced behind it — and on an HDFC chain, the tracing is where the money is.

Take a family with 100 HDFC shares bought in 1990, plus 50 more from the 1992 rights issue. A generalist starts from what the family remembers — ‘100 HDFC shares’ — applies the merger ratio, and files for 168 HDFC Bank shares. Perhaps 336, if he knows about the bonus.

The real figure is 33,600 shares for the original certificate and 16,800 for the rights certificate: the 1999 split, the 2002 bonus and the 2010 split all happened before the merger, and each one multiplied the holding. File for 168 and the family recovers one share in every three hundred it owns — then goes back into the queue for the rest, plus the dividends.

We work the other way round. We trace the complete holding first — every split, bonus and merger, every folio, every certificate. Then a vetted local partner handles the paperwork where you live, on the full holding, the first time.

There is also the question of who is paid for what. A lawyer or agent is paid whether or not your shares ever arrive. We are not. Zero advance — you pay only once the shares are credited to your demat account. So the only thing we are paid for is the whole chain working.

And the document is the start, not the finish. After it come the release from the escrow account, the demat credit, an IEPF-5 claim if the shares have gone to the IEPF, and a transmission if the holder has died. Anyone can get you a piece of paper. We get you the shares.

One date you should know about

SEBI’s special window for old physical transfers closes on 4 February 2027. It covers transfer deeds signed before 1 April 2019 that were rejected, returned or never processed — for example, HDFC shares you bought on paper and never got registered in your own name.

It does not cover shares already transferred to the IEPF, or disputed cases, and shares registered through it are locked in for a year. The full rules of the window are here.

Not sure what your certificate is worth? Start with Find Your Shares →

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I check unclaimed HDFC dividends?
For HDFC Bank dividends, write to HDFC Bank’s registrar, Datamatics Business Solutions, or check the unclaimed-dividend lists HDFC Bank publishes. For dividends of the old HDFC Ltd, HDFC’s former investor pages — now kept on HDFC Bank’s home-loans website — list unclaimed dividends by year and include a search. A dividend unclaimed for more than seven years has moved to the IEPF and is claimed with Form IEPF-5.

What is the HDFC Ltd to HDFC Bank share exchange ratio?
42 HDFC Bank shares of ₹1 for every 25 HDFC Ltd shares of ₹2, for shareholders on the register on the record date of 13 July 2023. The merger took effect on 1 July 2023 and HDFC Bank allotted the shares on 14 July 2023. After HDFC Bank’s one-for-one bonus in August 2025, each HDFC Ltd share of ₹2 equals 3.36 HDFC Bank shares.

What happened to HDFC Ltd shares held in physical form?
HDFC Bank issued the new shares only in electronic form. For HDFC Ltd certificates that had not been dematerialised by the record date, the HDFC Bank shares were placed in a trustee or escrow demat account held on the shareholders’ behalf. They are moved to your own demat account once you send your demat details and KYC documents to HDFC Bank’s registrar. Dividends and bonus shares continue to accrue meanwhile.

I have an old HDFC certificate with a face value of ₹100. How many HDFC Bank shares is it now?
336 HDFC Bank shares for every share on the certificate. A ₹100 certificate predates HDFC’s August 1999 split to ₹10. Since then each share was multiplied by ten in 1999, doubled by the 2002 bonus, multiplied by five in the 2010 split, converted at 42 for 25 in the 2023 merger, and doubled again by HDFC Bank’s 2025 bonus. 100 such shares are 33,600 HDFC Bank shares today.

Has HDFC Bank ever issued bonus shares?
Once. HDFC Bank issued a one-for-one bonus with a record date of 27 August 2025 — the first bonus in its history. It has also split its shares twice: from ₹10 to ₹2 in July 2011 and from ₹2 to ₹1 in September 2019.

How do I claim HDFC Bank shares back from the IEPF?
File Form IEPF-5 online, naming HDFC Bank as the company — including for shares that were originally HDFC Ltd shares. Since October 2025 an entitlement letter from the company is mandatory, so the process starts with HDFC Bank’s nodal officer for IEPF. The claim includes any bonus shares the IEPF received on those shares in 2025.

What happened to Centurion Bank of Punjab shares?
Centurion Bank of Punjab merged into HDFC Bank on 23 May 2008. Shareholders received one HDFC Bank share of ₹10 for every 29 Centurion Bank of Punjab shares of ₹1 held on the record date of 16 June 2008. After HDFC Bank’s two splits and its 2025 bonus, 1,000 Centurion Bank of Punjab shares are 680 HDFC Bank shares today.

Did GRUH Finance shareholders get HDFC Bank shares?
No. GRUH Finance merged into Bandhan Bank, not HDFC Bank. Shareholders received 568 Bandhan Bank shares of ₹10 for every 1,000 GRUH shares of ₹2 held on the record date of 17 October 2019.