Anil Ambani group's Reliance Money on Tuesday sparked a price war in the highly competitive brokerage space by offering a free trading account to its demat account holders, with an aim to tap up to 30 crore (300 million) potential clients.
The brokerage and financial products distribution arm of Reliance Capital, ADA group's financial services unit, on Tuesday said it was offering a free trading account for one year, with which one can trade in shares worth up to Rs 5 lakh, to the customers opening a demat account with Reliance Money.
Earlier, it was charging a flat fee of Rs 500 for trading up to Rs five lakh in one year. Reliance Money was the first company in India to offer a flat fee structure for trading in stocks, commodities and other instruments, as against the industry practice of percentage brokerage charges per transaction.
The industry brokerage fees averages around 0.5 per cent for delivery-based equity trades, which would result into up to Rs 2,500 for Rs 5 lakh of trading. Leading brokerages like ICICI Direct and HDFC Securities charge 0.25-0.75 per cent on delivery-based equity trades.
The offer would be available to those opening a demat account with Reliance Money in next few weeks, the company said. Those seeking to trade beyond Rs 5 lakh would have to pay Rs 500 for trading up to Rs 1 crore (for 2 months) or Rs 2,500 for Rs 6 crore (for one year), it added.
"We expect to add over two lakh demat accounts with this offer with our entire effort focused to get the not-so-savvy semi-urban and rural investor to participate in the stock market, in addition to the savvy investors who are already trading on one or the other platform," Reliance Money CEO Sudip Bandyopadhyay said. Taking into consideration other trading related charges, Reliance Money has an account opening fee of Rs 750 and a demat account annual fee of Rs 50.
The brokerage charges for ICICI Direct is up to 0.75 per cent and Indiabulls charges 0.4 per cent, while it is 0.5 per cent at Sharekhan, Geojit, India Infoline, Motilal Oswal, Religare, Angel Broking and HDFC Securities.
While India Infoline does not charge annual fee, it varies between Rs 200-750 for other brokerages. The account opening charges VARY between Rs 100-750 for all brokerages.
Reliance Money also announced a partnership with Corporation Bank to offer broking services to 9.5 million account holders of the public sector lender.
Under the agreement, Corporation Bank's Depository System would be linked with Reliance Money trading platform and customers having DP Account with Corporation Bank would also be able to trade seamlessly through Reliance Money's Platform.
"India has over 300 million bank accounts and we feel that most of these account holders would want to participate in the capital market provided they have access to reliable advice and enabling tools. With this tie-up, we would be helping 9.5 million Corporation Bank account holders with their broking needs," Bandyopadhyay said.
He said the company's business model was aimed at increasing the market size, rather than capture a major portion of the existing market. "We feel that a sizable portion of Indian investors are not participating in the market for various reasons - accessibility of service from a reputed brand and price entry barrier being two of them. We have addressed both these concerns with this first-of-its-kind limited period offer," he added.