Those making trades in the stock market must be aware of the brokerage that is paid on every transaction. Therefore, any buying and selling in the stock market is passed through a person known as a broker that acts as a liaison between the traders i.e. the investor and the stock market. These brokers are persons that are registered on the stock market and have to function as per the guidelines of SEBI.This is what the entire retail brokerage business is all about.
Basically, there are two main types of brokers operating in the stock market i.e. the traditional brokers also known as the full-service brokers and secondly, the discount broker in India.
- Traditional brokers– They are also called as thefull-service brokerswho offer trade of stocks, commodities and currency, provide assistance with the research and advisory thing, offer investment banking options, sales and asset management all services under one umbrella. They also allow a deal with areas of investing in Forex, Mutual Funds, IPOs, FDs, Bonds and Insurance. In certain cases, these full-service brokers also have in-house banking and DEMAT account services. In India,there are approximately above 10,000 traditional retail brokers. They are ‘advisors’ to their client and at the same time a direct salesman for the financial products to the companies. ICICIDirect, Kotak Security, HDFC Sec, Sharekhan, India Infoline are some of the full-service brokers operating in the market.
- Budget brokers– Also known as the “Discount brokers”, they offer very less or low brokerage, but in turn high speed and the state-of-the-art execution platform for trading in stocks, commodities and currency derivatives. They offer ‘no-frills’ brokerage service for ‘do-it-yourself’ traders i.e. the direct investors who understand the market well. These online brokers generally offer an advantage of offering savings upto 80 to 90% on the overall brokerage. In our country, India, there are many discount brokers like the ProStocks, Zerodha, RKSV, Trade Smart Online, Achiievers, SAS online, etc.
In addition to this comparison between the two, one can avail a number of benefits trading with the discount brokers like-
- Trustworthiness– These brokers are reliable and they are regularly audited by the exchanges. Therefore, both the money and the shares at the safe hands.
- Excellent customer service– The profit margins of the discount brokers are very less but they still believe in the low cost line executions. Their operational expenses and customer acquisition expenses are very less,
- No hidden fees– These brokers are most transparent brokers and charge no hidden fees.All their software’s including trading terminal mobile app and website are all free of cost. They do take anything extra for call & trade to discourage customers to use this service.
Discount brokers offer real value to many frequent traders. Through their existence in the market, they are changing the overall dynamics of brokerage industry with upgraded technologically advance trading platforms, online investor education and cheapest brokerage charges. Always go with the next generation brokers to place the orders without visiting the offices manually.