Why Sharekhan is better?

You can find similar type of questions on Quora like ” Is it better to open demat account with Sharekhan?” The answer  you get there may be biased in one way or the other since everyone out there is trying to advertise their own products. Such forums are open to one and all for any type of promotion and advertisement.

If you are particularly looking for answer to  this question, then we should actually understand that  demat account is a part of one of the many services offered by your broker. We should actually look at the services and features provided by the broker.  Demat Account is only required if you are taking delivery trades and to keep  Mutual Funds in your DP account. However If you only want trade in Intraday and equity Derivatives  with Sharekhan, you don’t need demat account and you can only open trading account with Sharekhan. So the question should be  rather “Is it better to open trading account with Sharekhan?”.

The answer to this question lies in the fact that what services you are looking for and is your broker be able to offer all these extended services to you.

This is similar to when you go for buying a property. If you wish to buy some good property you need to pay some premium. You can get cheaper property in outskirt area, but will it match with your requirements?  Similar concept is with brokerage house. You may get brokers that offer very low brokerage charges but does the broker provide you all the services that you are looking for?

Even though full service brokers are charging  higher brokerage but I feel it is worth to pay higher brokerage if we are getting better services and local presence.

I have lots of friends who have account with Sharekhan, when we discuss about the brokerage comparison, they always  say the same thing, till we are getting best advisory / tips/ research reports and customer service, we don’t care about paying bit higher commission.

Sharekhan’s services in detail:

• PAN India Presence – Sharekhan is one of the oldest brokerage house in country with PAN India presence. They are serving customers on their local level via branch office, sub broker network. That’s make it more convenient for traditional way of doing trading/investment.
• Convenient Brokerage Fees - Depend on your volume you can do bargain with your local broker to reduce your pricing. Even though they have standard rates, but with your trading volume they are flexible to shift you in better plan.
• Trading Platform – Sharekhan is the pioneer in Indian Trading market to start online trading. They are providing best in class tools to traders – Sharekhan Website, ShareKhan App (Mobile App),Sharekhan Mini and TradeTiger Desktop exe based trading terminal. TradeTiger is one of the oldest and most reliable trading terminals. Sharekhan is providing free Call and Trade service also.
• Margin/Leverage – As established brokerage house they have better offering in Margin policy. You will get much higher Leverage / Margin for your intraday trades as well as option for T+5 days delivery trades. Sharekhan also have Margin Funding
• Research Report – Sharekhan is known for its research service, they have dedicated research team for retail as well as institutional investors. Company is providing Short term derivative calls (Futures and options Research) for traders, long term call for investors and Mutual fund research service. Research is an area where you need to spend lots of time, Sharekhan is helping you to provide best in class research to make you success and grow your money. You have access of research report to understand the insight of company portfolio. Sharekhan Research service is free for its customers. Sharekhan closely follow its research scripts and provide you alerts and updates as and when required. The company also provide PMS Service having  Aggressive, Dynamic, Balanced, Moderate and Conservative Portfolio, which you can choose depend on your risk appetite. Sharekhan also provide must have stocks list which will be for long term goals.
• Mutual Fund Service – Sharekhan is providing MF service to its investor with the help of online research as well as advisory service. The Company is providing “Insta MF – Online Paperless Mutual Fund Account”. Sharekhan have Mutual Fund research for SIP as well as lump-sum investment.  Company also have robo advisory service which take your inputs on goal horizon and risk profile and suggest the best fit funds for your investment.
• Trading and Investment Education: From the beginning,  Sharekhan has focus on Investor education. In that respect, Sharekhan has partnered with Online Trading Academy to provide world class financial education to its customers. Company has various courses from short term, intermediate to lifetime levels. 

Conclusion: In my opinion, “you get what you pay” - still hold good with brokerage house services. Other then high brokerage, I don’t see any negative with Sharekhan services. With Sharekhan you get best research and advisory service, robust trading platforms, margin funding, multiple investment options and most important trading and investment education.