This article deals with explaining about online stock broking and online stock brokers, the qualities of the best online brokers and how to choose the best online broker.
Offline Brokers offer to trade by calling or reaching to their local branches and do trading through their terminals on your behalf. Due to their high overhead costs, offline brokers charge higher commission and brokerage rates for their services. If you are a type of person who wants a hands-on approach that an offline stock broker has to offer than you might opt for offline trading services.
When you are dealing with an offline share broker, you will most likely need to call them every time you want to make a trade. This type of personalized service is preferable to many people because it allows them the chance to ask for some advice, as well as to communicate with someone who has experience in the field. The quality of the service you receive will depend greatly on the type of broker you are dealing with. The commonly facing problem with offline brokers is busy phone lines, misinterpretation, location restrictions, etc.
Online Stock Broking comprises of brokers supporting online trading to its clients through offering trading software, web-based platform, and mobile trading app. They have negligible offline support. Most of the brokers in India offer online stockbroking these days. Both types of brokers, full-service brokers and discount brokers have online platforms to perform trade. To know everything about the full-service brokers and the discount brokers, read our detailed article- The Best Full-service Brokers in India and The Best Discount Brokers in India.
The brokers that provide online trading services are referred to as Online Stock Brokers. The traders make use of desktop, web, and mobile to perform trades rather than visiting the broker’s terminal or calling him to make a trade on your behalf.
Indian Stock market is full of good online stock brokers to choose from. To make your selection easier you have to look for some qualities or features in your online share broker. The qualities that your online broker must have are:
A good broker is the one who offers the best trading platforms across desktop, web and mobile app. The platform should be user-friendly, easy to use, secure, fast and reliable. A trader especially a day trader cannot afford a platform that has technical and software issues.
Good customer support is a must for all type of traders. It comes the time in every broker’s life when you have to use the support channel of your trader. Not all mode of customer service is offered by all the brokers. The support offered by your broker must match your preferences like if you are a type of person who uses the online customer support or would like to take services of personal relationship manager each time.
Margin Limits vary from broker to broker. Some brokers offer high leverage on intraday trading and MIS products than others. High leverage or exposure means taking a much bigger position than the capital available. Some brokers offer leverage up to 33 times or 50 times for intraday trades. So do check the leverage offered by the broker.
Instant fund transfer to and from your account is important for trading. Facilities like BHIM/UPI, IMPS/NEFT/RTGS transfers and instant payment gateway are the facilities provided by your broker for hassle-free and instant fund transfer. Not only transferring fund to your account but the withdrawal process should also be smooth and seamless.
The easier it would be to open an account with the broker, more likely to increase the no. of customers. The broker should have updated AAdhar linked account opening process for trading and Demat account. The process should be smart enough to get your personal information from AAdhar database.
Tools like brokerage calculator to calculate brokerage upfront, span calculator to calculate span margin upfront, algo trading tools for systematically profitable trades are very helpful. Other smart tools like real-time market data feed, advanced charting tools, technical analysis tools, stock scanners, backtesting tools also contribute to your success in trade. Alerts based on your preferences should be there to not miss any profitable opportunity on trade.
The best online broker can be the full-service broker or the discount broker as they both offer online services. There are a few easy steps to follow for choosing the best online broker.
Now as we know that both full-service brokers and discount brokers offer online services, they do have differences in terms of brokerage, services and availability and both have their own advantages and disadvantages. Let’s have a look:
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Looking at the pros and cons of online full-service brokers and discount brokers, now you can easily choose to go with either of them based on your needs. Like if you want to only invest in a few shares without much recommendation and help, then the discount broker can be the good option. If you want to trade and invest in multiple asset class then the full-service broker would be the good choice for you.
Now once you make up your mind, then check out our list of the top ten stock brokers in India and shortlist one or two brokers out of it. You can either stop here or go to the next step for further clarity.
You can further go ahead and compare the shortlisted brokers on our site in our side-by-side comparison page. This will help you know exactly what you are looking for and pick the top online share broker out of the rest.
Last updated on 26th Jul 2019
