hello,
I have online trading a/c.s with
ICICIdirect.com
KotakSecurities.com
HDFCsecurities.com
IndiaBulls.com
Sharekhan.com
Each one has its own peculiarities: Plus Points and Irritants.
Indiabulls do not care to reply to your queries, complaints and client instructions. But they are fast in implementation of orders and realtime quotes.
Good rate of brokerage is their plus points, over and above Relationship Manager responsiveness. Receiving funds from them is the worst part of their customer service.
KotakSecurities are generally good, but they do not allow more than 25 scrips at a time. You have to shut down one screen to open the other. The computer programme is a bit more cumbersome than others. Brokerage rate is higher than all the other brokers mentioned above. No special benefit in having online trading a/c. with them. However, their highest plus point is daily Trading Calls. Their batting average is higher.
HDFCsecurities are good as we have banking a/c. with them and the payment gateway enables immediate transfer of funds either way. Order placement for buy or sell is time consuming as it takes longer time compared to other online trading brokers. Excellent security feature of a bank is the greatest safety for dealing with them. DP charges are higher. It looks into the bank a/c. balance before placing purchase orders. That way it saves on interest on funds not used till order is executed.
ICICIdirect is par excellence compared to others except that they do not provide Online Realtime TICKER Trading. If this feature is enabled, then no body could beat it. All facilities of trading in equities, MFs and now Post Office Savings are a dream of investor of any category. However, the order execution is a weak link in their system. Perhaps huge number of customers accessing their servers might be slowing down the operations. May be they can think of having Mirror Sites or similar to reduce the burden on limited access. It needs funds earmarked for trading from the savings/current a/c. held with the bank.
Sharekhan is an Intuitive Trading place to deal in shares: both cash and derivatives. You can go on adding scrips and customise your trading. Simultaneous available Price Ticker, 8 Indicators' Chart and Depth boxes are a traders' delight. All demat data and buying selling obligations etc. are available on the report screen.
I also note with regret that except HDFCsecurities, every brokers needs funds in their trading a/c. which leads to loss of interest on unused funds. At times this amount may continue for many days, either due to buy sell operations or not having transactions. I feel that they should give interest on the funds deposited with them.
All the above is based on my personal experience in dealing with all these online brokers. Others' experience may be different. It is a matter of subjective assessment.
Please note, I am using computers since 1984 and anything that is clumsy is not acceptable to me. After all, the computers are meant for reducing our hand work and record maintenance.
Best Wishes.
Sharad C. Kapadia