newbie: Whom to choose? ICICI, Reliance, sharekhan or anyone else?

Hello everyone,
As you can see from my memberID I am a newbie to investing (as kids while playing, we used to call such players katcha papad, and give them batting twice, hence this nickname ) Not started yet, doing basic research and reading a lot of posts from this forum. I have gained some basic vocabulary inorder to be able to make my first post here.

I will be buying and holding shares, and sell them after some time. I guess my types are called delivery-based investing. My budget is not much. Right now I have around 50-75K to invest. We'll see on the basis of how it goes later. So I am definitely not a heavy trader. I'd also like to have a seamless online trading facility, including IPO and mutual funds. I've read some posts here which go into the nitty-gritty details of some trading terminals etc which I guess applies only to heavy traders dealing in lacs of rupees per day.

Now I am confused as to which demat service I should be choosing. I just spoke to a RelianceMoney representative (well a lukkha guy with no knowledge is more like it), and he was not v.clear with what charges they apply. Nevertheless after speaking to his boss on phone as I understand their charges are as follows:

1) Brokerage charge: 1 paise per transaction (as opposed to .75% of ICICI), irrespective of the transaction amount. Both for Buy & Sell. He said this 1 paise includes all Service Tax, Education cess etc. which generally comes out to 12.36% in ICICI.

2) 0.125% SEBI Security Transaction charges inorder to take delivery of (or hold) the shares. This he said is a SEBI charge common to all and there's no escaping it.

3) Apart from that they have a Rs 500 coupon valid for a year. For the first year they will waive it off for me, but for next year onwards it will be Rs500 per annum for trading account and Rs 50/ p.a. for demat account maintenance.

Please let me know/correct me if my understanding is correct. Are there any other hidden charges? There was another thread somewhere where some ppl were reporting 12Rs charges per stock per month. Which surprisingly the boss I spoke to decline but that is mentioned on their application form?! So I am not too sure if what he was saying is totally true or even he was misinformed. Surely their charges look too less. What is the catch? How can they afford brokerage of 1 paise only?

Now Reliance is the only guy I have spoken to. None of the others (sharekhan, ICICI) have contacted me back after I put in my contact details on their website, even after a week. I am wondering if they are so bad even at this stage, how will I be treated once I sign-up.

Which service should I sign up considering that I need everything online, not too heavy trader and I can tolerate a little bit of delay in their websites. Some basic reliability, customer service with as minimum brokerage/service charges as possible.

I guess I am looking for something which has reputation/reliability of as close to ICICI with lower fees. But you guys can suggest me anything else. From the Begineer pages, I also read this thread but it's v.old from 2004. So I am looking for 2007 info or advice on the same lines.

There was also some confusion as to sharekhan not supportinjg BSE and IPOs. From their website I couldn't make out if that is true.

If I am mainly going to invest only in major stocks, does it matter whether its BSE or NSE? Also even if Reliance's service is a bit bad right now can I consider to sign up (based purely on their lowest charges) and just keep some long-term stocks/MFs in it? Is that a good strategy ? Since I won't be interacting much so their service hiccups won't hurt me much. And one last question: How many days does it take to have demat/online trading account ready so that I could be sure that I'll be able to catch ReliancePower IPO (rumored to be around 10thNov)?

Thanks in advance for all your help. Looking forward to learn and share in this forum and make $ome money :-)

-katchaPapad.

KatchaPapad , what they offered me is Rs. 500 valid for 1 year upto a limit of 5Lac.

But this cost to me 500/500000 = 0.1 Brokerage that is 10 paisa. which is high then they are claiming that i have to pay only 1 paisa ..


Or I am calculating it wrong .....

Calculation is definately wrong : its comes out to 0.001

In addition to 1 paisa brokerage you have to pay service tax, STT, Stamp duty, turnover tax, etc.
In case of other brokerage house also you have to born all the taxes. Reliance Money is much much cheaper. I have heard that they are not charging any money for first year and you can trade upto Rs.5 lacs. Demat maintenance charges are also nil for the first year..

My friend has an account with RelianceMoney. His complain is he can not login till 7:00 pm on all trading days after day closer. I had asked the Reliance marketing guy about the same thing. He said they will soon correct it.
Not allowing to even login for about almost 3-4 hours is horrible. You may ask the officer you got clarification from about this login problem.

Dear friends,

if you are not worried about brokrage and
acc. mentainance charges go for MOTILALA OSWAL

MOTILALA OSWAL
Brk. = 15paisa intraday( buy+sell ) & delivery 40 paisa ( buy/sell )
acc. mentainnance charges = 400/-per year
don't worry their RESEARCH is very good
you will hardly loos money & go for web based ACC.
if it is your first step into share market

ANGEL BROKING
http://www.angelbroking.com/
i don't know much about ANGEL BROKING
but i have heard that their service is good
so TRY TO GET MORE INFORMATION & let me know about it
mail me about this :- sada1234u@rediffmail.com

Pls don't an open account in Share khan,Brokerage charges are very high and software is very very bad.when ever there is selling pressure in the market they block u from trading,u can't buy nor sell.Sharekhan is one of worst broker in india

Thanks all of you guys. Can someone here explain me what is this Stamp duty, turnover tax that ranj_2k mentioned ?

I spoke with shareKhan rep today. He seemed more informed than the Reliance rep yesterday. Following are the schemes he has offered me.

a) Upfront brokerage Rs 2000 p.a -- No account opening fee.
In this brokerage charges (.07% intraday, 0.4% delivery) will be deducted from the 2000 deposit and will be refunded back after a month.

b) Acct opening fee: Rs 750, Rs 5000/ one-time upfront margin required which can be later reduced to zero as you trade.
Brokerage charges - 0.1% intraday, 0.5% delivery.

In both the above schemes Service tax 12.36% and Sebi STT charges 0.125% is over and above the brokerage charges which applies. Can anyone confirm if ICICI also charges these over and above their 0.75% brokerage on delivery?

Sharekhan can also work with my Citibank acct. for funds transfer unlike Reliance who wanted me to open acct with UTI(Axis). ShareKhan also allows both BSE/NSE, IPOs and zero charges if investing in MFs. So that is good for me, tho the same is also true for ICICI.

For a small trader like me who will invest about 50-75K spread out over a period of say 6 months (and plan to hold most of it for a long time: 1 year+) ie: not much buying and selling in between, what do you guys recommend ?

I am guessing if going for shareKhan option (b) is better for me. But I don't know about comparative advantages of their services vis-a-vis Reliance or ICICI, or if there are any hidden charges. Can any of you advise? From rrs's friends experience Reliance looks like v.bad. I don't mind paying some nominal brokerage charges for a decent service or a nominal onetime acct. opening fee if the service is good.

Also I came across this page about ICICI charges, and I couldn't understand what rows C, D, E in their table shown.

ICICIdirect Other broker
Normal brokerage 0.85% max Lets say 0.50%
A Transaction value 10000 10000
B Brokerage (Rs.) 85.00 50.00
C Service Tax (5% of B) NIL 2.50
D Other charges (0.03% of A) NIL 3.00
E Demat charges NIL 25.00
F Total charges (Rs.) B+C+D+E 85.00 80.50

I haven't heard about this service tax, other charges and demat charges which this table shows for other brokers. Is ICICI misrepresenting other brokers and just bluffing around or is there any real meat in their argument ?

I think I am getting confused between shareKhan option (b) or go for wellknown and reputed ICICI. I think I will rule out Reliance based solely on my interaction yesterday with their rep. who knew much less than a non-investor like me and inability to clarify the discrepancy of the charges which he was quoting and what is mentioned on the app. form.

Guys please advise either way or should I be considering something else too?

I have account with ICICIDirect. I just can't login during the first half hour of trading. By chance If my login is successful, placing a successful order is a daunting task.

By paying 500/- 12months validity recharge (as on today they even don't ask for first 500/-)

You can trade say 100 orders worth 5000/- each (take average)
If you exceed your 5,00,000/- turnover limit within a year either you recharge your account by
1. Rs. 500/- two months validity (1,00,00,000 turnover) or
2. Rs. 500/- twelve months validity (5,00,000 turnover) depending on your number of trade.
If trade heavily you can recharge by 2 months validity 1 cr turnover option. Else just recharge with 12 months validity option.
But here all trade are charged 1 paisa FLAT irrespective its value in rupees.
The scheme is similar to PrePaid Mobile it has two things 1. Validity in terms of time period. 2. Free talk time.
Here in case of Reliance you have 1. Validity in terms of time 2. Validity in terms of Volume.