With new-age brokerages gaining increasing traction thanks to their no/very low brokerage fees, traditional players like Axis Securities and Angel Broking are also getting aggressive on the discount front.
Axis Direct, the brokerage arm of the third largest private sector lender Axis Bank, Monday introduced a plan under which its customers will be charged a flat ₹ 20 per trade (buy or sell) irrespective of the value of the transaction, an official statement said.
Bank customers maintaining an average quarterly balance of ₹75,000 will be able to avail of this low fee offer, while others will have to pay a monthly fee of ₹250, Axis Direct said.
The announcement made in the morning was followed up by Angel Broking which also came out with flat pricing for trades, wherein it will charge ₹15 for order size of up to ₹50,000 and ₹30 for those beyond, the pure-play brokerage said in a statement.
It can be noted that the going has been tough for the brokerage industry in recent years, with new entrants like Zerodha disrupting old models wherein customers are normally charged a percentage of the trade value.
The Axis plan is offered to investors in both the equity and equity derivatives segments, while the Angel offer is valid for equities, futures & options, commodity and also currency segments.
Axis Securities managing director and chief executive Arun Thukral said retail investors, especially the millennials, are looking for affordable solutions.
He said the house is looking at improving market share both in terms of volume and the number of retail investors transacting with it, through the launch.
“An online self-service offering that provides services at a simplified pricing will help attract a newer set of first-time investors,” Angel Broking chief executive Vinay Agrawal said.
The market leader in the low/zero brokerage arena is Zerodha as it has no minimum brokerage fee per trade but a flat 0.01 percent or ₹20 per order whichever is lower. It also charges zero brokerage on delivery.
Another player is Wisdom Capital which charges no fees in any segment, while RKSV Security offers five free trades every month and ₹20 per trade after that.
That apart there are also many discount brokerages such as Samco Securities, 5 Paise Capital (from the IIFL group, which also runs a another brokerage IIFL Securities, among others.