NRI choices for stock broker ? Sharekhan vs Zerodha vs ??

[nrinoobie]

Hello,

We are NRI and foreign citizens who has OCI (overseas citizenship of india - fancy title for a permanent visa) . We do not own any properties in India hence no address in India as we visit relatives only.

I currently have a Axis 3 in 1 account and so far happy with it. The mobile app is bad in terms of design but does it job.

I am currently thinking of opening another trading account in wife's name. We have a few options in mind:
Sharekhan - Ties with BNP Paribas so recognised
Zerodha - No1 broker in India
HDFC - Largest private bank in India


We are happy to consider any other companies if they are pretty good, the only condition is they have to be well known in industry and have good customer service (eg ICICI, HSBC, etc), preferably a organisation who has some links to UK.

Since NRI can't do intraday trading, we will be looking to use the new account for buy/sell in short term. Buy and then sell something within a week , month etc. Wife currently doesn't have a demat account so another factor will be to choose a bank to open one.

We currently have the below:
ICICI - Joint account in husband/wife
Axis - Joint account in husband/wife + Demat in husband name + Trading in husband name
Axis - Account in wife + Couple of mutual funds

So I am not keen to open an account in a new bank unless I have to. If I do, then I will look to closing one of the above. This way I can keep things simple. Obviously as seen above, if I open a demat in wife's name, then that means I have to move the Mutual funds into that Demat account.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

[nrinoobie]

Also , I assume all the brokers offer full access to all Indian equities, MFs, IPOs, Bonds ?

 

[mbhardwaj82]

check @Finvasia . they have good NRI reviews, support Axis and global office as well. Hope this helps.

 

[Pradeep Narayan]

https://www.interactivebrokers.co.in/en/index.php?f=3405&p=nris

 

[TracerBullet]

https://www.interactivebrokers.co.in/en/index.php?f=3405&p=nris

IB is great with probably the best platform - but note that they dont have 3 in 1 account - ie not linked to bank.

Normally that wont be an issue but unfortunately, SEBI has a quarterly settlement rule now and IB follows it strictly. They send back all money to bank every 3 months and they do that in morning. So you will have that disruption and you will have to manage it regularly. There are workarounds but that still requires extra capital and you will still have to handle it. This might be ok for overnight trading but its something to consider.

With 3 in 1 accounts, you probably will have to just allocate the money back from bank account and it should work instantly. But brokerage can be very high..