As of June 2024 end, the number of demat accounts in India exceeded 16 crores. The last few months have seen an addition of more than 30 lakh new demat accounts every month. Broking firms are coming up with unique features, lower pricing, and other benefits. Individuals are rushing to open demat accounts for various purposes.
Some of these include investing in shares for the long term, trading, applying for IPOs, etc. Whatever your reason for opening a demat account, you should consider various factors before finalising one. One of the factors that you should consider is the charges involved in opening and maintaining a demat account. Let us look at the various charges that a demat account entails.
The account opening fee is a one-time fee. Some broking firms may waive the account opening fee as a product feature or under a limited-time offer. For example, as per the Angel One website, the demat account opening is free.
For example, a full-service broking firm may charge a flat fee of 0.5% of the transaction amount. A discount broking firm may charge a flat fee of Rs. 10 per trade. A broking firm charging a combination may charge something like 0.5% of the transaction amount subject to a minimum of Rs. 25 per trade.
m.Stock offers 0 brokerage for life across products with a one-time account opening charge of Rs. 999 + taxes. The products include delivery, intraday, futures and options (F&Os), mutual funds, initial public offerings (IPOs), currency, etc. m.Stock is the online retail stock broking service from Mirae Asset Capital Markets (India) Private Limited.
Recently, in Budget 2024, the Finance Minister proposed to increase the STT rate on the sale of options from 0.0625% to 0.1%. The STT on the sale of futures is proposed to be increased from 0.0125% to 0.02%. The increase in STT rate will be effective from 1st October 2024.
Exchange feesare to be paid to the stock exchanges like the BSE and NSE. For example, the NSE fees are 0.00322% on equity intraday and delivery, 0.00188% on F&O futures, and 0.0495% on options premium.
SEBI turnover feesare to be paid to the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). The fee is based on the turnover and is charged at Rs. 10 per crore.
Whenever you sell shares held by you in a demat account, a DP charge is levied when the shares are debited from the demat account. The fee is levied on a per scrip (irrespective of the number of shares sold) per transaction basis. For example, Upstox has DP charges of Rs. 18.5 per scrip per day on the sale of securities. Similarly, Zerodha has DP charges of Rs. 13.5 per scrip, Angel One has DP charges of Rs. 20 per debit and m.Stock has DP charges of Rs. 12 per scrip
For example, Angel One charges Rs. 20/order, and Zerodha charges Rs. 50/order for transactions done through this facility. However, m.Stock doesn’t charge for the call & trade facility.
For example, Upstox and Angel One charge a pledging fee of Rs. 20 per scrip and Zerodha charges Rs. 30 per scrip.
For example, m.Stock charges Rs. 7–11 per transaction for net banking transfers, and UPI transactions are free. Similarly, Zerodha charges Rs. 9 per transaction for net banking transfers, and UPI transactions are free.
Gopal Gidwani is a freelance personal finance content writer with 15+ years of experience. He can be reached at LinkedIn.