Sharekhan Review 2020

Sharekhan has low stock and ETF trading fees, no withdrawal and low non-trading fees. Unfortunately, there is an account fee of INR 400 after your second year.

How we ranked fees

We ranked Sharekhan's fee levels as low, average or high based on how they compare to those of all reviewed brokers.

To get things rolling, let's go over some lingo related to broker fees. What you need to keep an eye on are trading fees, and non-trading fees.

• Trading fees occur when you trade. These can be commissions, spreads, financing rates and conversion fees.
• Non-trading fees include charges not directly related to trading, like withdrawal fees or inactivity fees.

In the sections below, you will find the most relevant fees of Sharekhan for each asset class. For example, in the case of stock investing the most important fees are commissions.

We also compared Sharekhan's fees with those of two similar brokers we selected, Zerodha and Interactive Brokers. This selection is based on objective factors such as products offered, client profile, fee structure, etc. See a more detailed rundown of Sharekhan alternatives.

To have a clear overview of Sharekhan, let's start with the trading fees.

Sharekhan trading fees

Sharekhan trading fees are low but not transparent. It is very strange that on the website there was no official information about the fees. You could get information only if you contact the customer support team or after you opened an account you get some documents about the pricing.

As Indian brokers usually offer only a few products, we compare brokers by calculating all fees of a typical trade for two assets.

For the assets we chose cleverly and arbitrarily:

• Reliance, a large Indian stock
• USDINR, a popular currency pair

We compared the fees for an equity delivery trading in case of Reliance and currency futures trading at USDINR. The typical trade means buying a position, holding for one week, and selling it. For the volume, we chose a $2,000 position for the stocks and $20,000 for the EURUSD.

This super catch-all benchmark includes spreads, commissions and financing costs for all brokers.

Here is the verdict. Sharekhan has low stock fees and high currency futures fees. Zerodha provides commission-free Indian stock trading, while Interactive Brokers has high fees for Indian stocks.

Non-trading fees

Sharekhan has average non-trading fees. There is no inactivity fee or withdrawal fee. However, from the second year onwards you will be charged a maintenance fee of INR 400.

It doesn’t charge for any Depository Participant (DP) transactions. The transfer of share from and to the DP account is free.

Account opening is fully digital and there is no minimum account balance. On the negative side, only Indian residents and non-resident Indians can open an account.

Can you open an account?

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Only Indian residents and non-resident Indians (NRI) can open an account.

What is the minimum deposit at Sharekhan?

The required Sharekhan minimum deposit is $0.

Account types

When you open an account at Sharekhan, the first step is to choose whether you open a Trading Account or an InstaMf Account. Trading Account is for trading assets from stocks to options, while InstaMF is for investing in mutual funds.

If you choose the Trading Account, you can choose the following four sub-account types.

1. First step (For beginners)
2. Investor Classic (For Investors)
3. Trade Tiger (For active Traders)
4. Advisory (For high net-worth Individuals)

How to open your account

Account opening process is quite simple and efficient and took only two days. The process is as follows:

1. There is an online registration in which you provide your name, telephone number and email id.
2. You get a call or an email from the customer service agent for the documents you need to open a trading account.
3. The last step is the verification where you have to upload a lot of documents.

You have to upload the following documents and all documents should be self-attested.

• Pan card copy
• Proof of residence - a copy of aadhar card, ration card, passport, driving license, bank statement not more than 2 months old
• Saving account detail - cheque leaf with name printed on it or 2 copies of passbook first page & latest transaction entry or latest bank statement 
• Latest passport size photograph - 2 copies

If you want to trade with futures and options, you have to make an additional registration. After that, you have to upload any of the following documents:

• Acknowledged copy of ITR
• Bank statement for last 6 months
• Latest salary slip
• Copy of form 16 in case of salaried individuals
• Net worth certificate duly certified by a chartered accountant

For the withdrawal and deposits, Sharekhan doesn't charge any fees. However, you can only use bank transfers and there is only one base currency.

Account base currencies

At Sharekhan, you can have only your account in INR. This offer is the same at Zerodha, while lags behind Interactive Brokers.

Why does this matter? For two reasons. If you fund your trading account in the same currency as your bank account or you trade assets in the same currency as your trading account base currency, you don't have to pay a conversion fee.

A convenient way to save on currency conversion fees is by opening a multi-currency bank account at a digital bank. Revolut or Transferwise both offer bank accounts in several currencies with great currency exchange rates as well as free or cheap international bank transfers. Opening an account only takes a few minutes on your phone.

Compare digital banks

Deposit fees and options

Sharekhan charges no deposit fees. However, you can use only bank transfer.

A bank transfer can take several business days, while payment with a credit/debit card is instant.

You can only deposit money from accounts which are in your name.

Sharekhan withdrawal fees and options

Sharekhan charges no withdrawal fees, but you can use only bank transfer. This is similar to competitors.

How long does it take to withdraw money from Sharekhan? We tested the bank transfer withdrawal and it took 1 business day.

You can only withdraw money to accounts in your name.

How do you withdraw money from Sharekhan? You can withdraw money from Sharekhan by following these steps:

• Login in to your account
• Choose the option of accounts
• Choose equity to bank
• Raise the request for transfer money from your equity account to your bank account

Compare to other brokers

Web trading platform is user-friendly and looks really simple yet sophisticated. However, it lacks customization and clear fee report.

Sharekhan has an in-house developed web trading platform, called Sharekhan Website.

The web trading platform is available only in English.

Look and feel

The Sharekhan web trading platform is user-friendly and has a lot of good features.

On the negative side, the platform is not customizable.

Login and security

Sharekhan provides a two-step login. It is safer than a one-step login.

You can set this feature if you unlock 2FA.

Search functions

The search functions are good. Once you enter three words of the equity or any products, it will come up with auto-suggestion for the relevant products.

Placing orders

You can use the following order types:

• Market
• Limit
• Stop-loss
• Bracket
• Bracket and Trailing

If you are not familiar with the basic order types, read this overview.

There are also order time limits you can use:

• Good 'til day (GTD)
• Good 'til time (GTT)
• Immediate or Cancel (IOC)

Alerts and notifications

You can set alert for notifications such as stock price, news, board meetings (AGM), the latest announcements in the company, etc.

Portfolio and fee reports

Sharekhan has a clear portfolio report, however, fee reports are missing. You can't see how much commission you paid to the broker.

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Sharekhan's mobile trading platform has the same look, user-friendliness, and almost the same functionalities than the web trading platform.

The mobile trading platform is available in English. There are two types of mobile application:

• Sharkhan App: It is for Android and IOS users with a high-speed broadband or network connection
• Sharekhan Mini: This application is for users with 2G connections and is a more basic and lite version.

In this review, we have tested the Sharekhan App on IOS.

Though the web and the mobile trading platforms are really similar to each other, we overweight simplicity and easy-handling at mobile trading platforms. That is why Sharekhan mobile trading platform has a bit higher score than the web trading platform.

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Sharekhan's desktop trading platform is highly customizable, offers many order types, and has a good search function. On the negative side, it is not well-designed, lacks two-step login, and doesn't provide a clear fee report.

Sharekhan has an in-house developed desktop trading platform, called Trade Tiger.

The desktop trading platform is available in English, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil.

Look and feel

The Sharekhan desktop trading platform is highly customizable and you can easily find the features.

We didn't like the design as it felt outdated.

Login and security

Sharekhan's Trade Tiger provides only a one-step login. A two-step login would be more secure.

Search functions

The search functions are good. If you write a few words the auto-suggestion will start suggesting the relevant equities or asset types

Placing orders

You can use the same order types as on the web trading platform, but there are more order time limits:

• Good 'til canceled (GTC)
• Good 'til end of the day (GTD)
• Immediate or Cancel (IOC)
• Fill or Kill (FOK)
• Day+EXT
• All or Nothing (AON)

Alerts and notifications

You can set the same price alerts as on the web trading platform.

Portfolio and fee reports

Sharekhan has a clear portfolio report, however, a clear fee report is missing.

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At Sharekhan you can trade with almost all asset classes, except bond, CFD, and crypto. On the negative side, it gives access only to Indian markets.

At Sharekhan, you can trade with a lot of asset classes, however, within each asset class, the selection is not competitive.

Stocks and ETFs

Sharkehan gives access to two Indian stock exchanges, the National stock exchange (NSE) and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). 

It is the same at Zerodha but lags behind Interactive Brokers which gives access to a lot of stock exchanges globally, including minor ones.

Forex

At Sharkehan, you can trade with currencies only as futures. There are only a few currency pairs provided: EURINR, USDINR, JPYINR, EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY.

Interactive Brokers has a much wider forex offer. However, they don't provide currency pairs crossed with INR.

Funds

You will find enough number of mutual fund providers. It is more than Zerodha's mutual fund selection, but not as much as at Interactive Brokers.

These fund providers cover mostly local mutual fund providers, like ICICI Prudential but you will also find international fund providers, like Goldman Sachs.

Bonds

Sharekhan provides bonds, but there is no clear information which bonds you can trade with.

Options

You can trade with options on NSE and MCX stock exchanges.

Futures

You can trade on the same stock exchanges as at options.

Sharekhan's research is great. You get clear recommendations, can access to fundamental data, and use a good interactive chart.

You can find research tools in both web trading platform as well as the desktop trading platform.

Trading ideas

Sharekhan provides trading ideas.

Trading ideas can be found in research and reports and are based on the fundamental of the requested company.

Fundamental data

Sharekhan offers fundamental data. The fundamental data includes information such as financial statements, balance sheet, Cash flow statement and various kind of ratios

Charting

Sharekhan has good charting tools. You can easily edit the charts. There are also use 70 technical indicators you can use. It is a good offer.

News feed

You can find the latest news related to market, stocks, funds. You can also find more relevant news in the specific asset.

The news is not high-quality ones and we could not find any charts or details.

More research info

Customer support is very good at Sharekhan. You can reach out to them in many languages, but there is no 24/7 availability.

You can contact Sharekhan via:

• live chat
• telephone
• email

Sharekhan has a live chat. The relevancy of the answers was impressive. However, before asking any questions, you need to feed your personal information such as name, phone number and your email id.

Sharekhan phone support works well. It was accurate and we got a response quickly

On email, we got and answers in a day which is pretty fast. The answers were sometimes not the most relevant.

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To improve your financial knowledge, Sharekhan has a lot to offer. You can learn from their tutorials, attend webinars, or watch educational videos. We missed the demo account.

At Sharekhan you can learn in the following ways:

• Platform tutorial videos
• General educational videos
• Quality educational articles
• Free workshops

You can find the educational tools below Education First section.

We liked the categorization of educational videos and articles: Mutual Funds, Personal Finance, Stock Investing, Trading

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Sharekhan is regulated by the SEBI and is one of the oldest online stock brokers in India. Sharekhan is the subsidiary of BNP Paribas which has a banking background and listed on a stock exchange.

Is Sharekhan regulated? Yes, it is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

Sharekhan is based in India and was founded in 2000. Is Sharekhan safe? To be certain, it is best to check two things: how you are protected if something goes wrong and what the background of the broker is.

How you are protected

This is important for you because the investor protection amount and the regulator differ from entity to entity. This is not an issue in this case as all the customers are covered by Sharekhan BNP Paribas Financial Services Limited. Because of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) regulation, the clients are not eligible for any investor protection amount.

Sharekhan does not provide negative balance protection.

Background

Sharekhan was established in 2000 and is the subsidiary of BNP Paribas. The longer the track record of a broker, the more proof we have that it has successfully survived previous financial crises.

Sharekhan's parent company is BNP Paribas. BNP Paribas has a banking background, as such, it is facing tougher regulation than brokers.

Furthermore, the parent company, BNP Paribas is listed on the Euronext Paris Stock Exchange. It is a big plus for safety as financial statements regularly and transparently released.

Having a parent company with a banking background and stock exchange listing, being in operation for a long time, and regulated by a top-tier regulator are all great signs for Sharekhan's safety.

Find your safe broker

Sharekhan is a decent stock broker in India with a long history.

On the plus side, it has a great mobile trading platform, has low trading fees, and has superb customer service, and offers a lot of research tools.

There are some drawbacks though. The trading fees are non-transparent, you will get access only to Indian markets, and you can use only bank transfer. 

As there is no inactivity fee and if you are prone to pay a bit higher price for wide and great services, feel free to try Sharekhan.

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