Kotak Securities launches e-broking

Indian broking firm Kotak Securities on Wednesday announced launch of its e-broking service, kotakstreet.com, for retail investors.

The company is an affiliate of Kotak Mahindra Finance Limited and is 25 per cent owned by Goldman Sachs.

"Online broking is a business which is a part and parcel of our brokerage and distribution business," Uday Kotak, chairman of the firm, said.

"We do not think it is a completely new business model independent of what the fundamental broking business is," he said.

Uday Kotak owns the remaining 75 per cent of Kotak Securities.

"kotakstreet.com is already geared up to launch the service in four cities at present. It plans to extend it to 11 cities in the next two months," the company said in a statement.

Company officials did not say how many new clients they expected to add from the online service or by how much its turnover would rise.

A business newspaper, quoting a recent study of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, said on Wednesday that securities trading over the Internet in India is growing at a fast clip but still represents only a fraction of total trading.

It said the number of average daily trades per settlement on the National Stock Exchange through the Internet rose to 2,123 in July from 201 in April while the value of the transactions increased to Rs 108.5 million from Rs 7.8 million.

Trades routed through the Internet accounted for 0.36 per cent of total trades on the exchange for the settlement ended July 18 compared to 0.05 per cent in April, while their share of value increased to 0.19 per cent of total trades from 0.02 per cent, the newspaper added.

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