Karvy Online

Karvy Online is a Full-Service stockbroker from the house of a wholesome financial conglomerate Karvy Group. Incorporated back in the year 1985, Karvy Online today has a presence in around 400 cities of India with International offices in New York and Dubai.

If you are looking to set up a business partnership in stockbroking, here is a quick review on Karvy Franchise.

Apart from Retail broking, Karvy Online has also been a prominent face in Institutional and corporate investments.

Here is a detailed review with information on different areas such as trading platforms, brokerage, margin, service, branches etc for you to assist in deciding whether to go ahead with this broker or not.

Karvy Online Review

Karvy Online, with its accreditation through BSE, NSE, MCX-SX, MCX and NCDEX, provides trading and investing facilities in the following segments:

• Equity
• Derivative Trading
• Currency Trading
• IPO
• Commodity Trading
• ETFs
• Mutual Funds
• NCDs
• Fixed Deposits

Since it is a full-service broker, it provides all sorts of services including research reports, Online support, Offline assistance through its branches and franchises, intra-day tips etc.

One unique service Karvy Online helps its clients with is ‘Ask The Expert‘ where registered clients can log in to the website and request answers to their trading or investment queries at a personal portfolio level.

Back-End research at both technical and fundamental level helps and answers these customer queries so that clients can take objective judgment before they put their money into the market.

---

“Karvy Online has an active client base of 2,62,842 for the year 2019-20.”

---

Karvy Online recently introduced a recommendation product called – Smart Trader. It helps clients by providing 8 stock recommendations before the first trading day every week. The recommendations will be based on both Technical as well as Derivative parameters around the market momentum.

Clients need to consider a few areas while using Smart trader:

• Recommendations may be a mix of both Long & Short positions based on market conditions.
• The stock must get initiated on the first two trading day of the week for Smart Trader to work for you.

 

From L-R: Mr C. Parthasarathy (Chairman & Managing Director), Mr M. Yugandhar (Managing Director), Mr M. S. Ramakrishna (Director), Mr V.Mahesh (Managing Director), Mr V. Ganesh (CEO – Karvy Computershare)

---

Karvy Online Trading Platforms

Karvy Online offers three trading solutions to its clients through desktop, web and mobile-based on client preferences. It also provides options to trade via call and SMS services. As far as the trading applications are concerned, here are the details:

Karvy Nest Trading Application

Karvy Nest is a downloadable EXE file that can be installed on a desktop or laptop.  It allows trading across all major exchanges including the National stock exchange (NSE). Some of the basic requirements before this file is installed on a laptop or desktop are:

Processor: 500MHz Pentium III or compatible

RAM: 256MB

Hard Disk Space: 15 MB

Operating System: Windows XP or later (no support for Macintosh)

Browser: Internet Explorer 7 and above, Chrome, Mozilla

Some of the features of this desktop-based trading application are:

• Place buy or sell orders
• Create Market watch groups to track scrips of your choice
• Receive personalized alerts and stock notifications
• View trades, positions and orders data

Here is the demo of how to use Kary Nest Trading application:

Karvy Online Trade

Karvy Online web is a browser-based trading application where clients do not need to install or download any EXE file to their machines. They can just browse to the application’s web URL and enter their valid login details.

This trading application is accessible through most of the prominent browsers be it Chrome, Mozilla, IE or Safari. Some of the features of this trading platform are:

• View Order Book, trade book, Intra-day book
• Get access to back office reports, real-time news and overall market picture
• Place, cancel or modify your orders
• Transfer funds through some of the major banks of the country
• Analyze intraday charts that display trade price, trade size and Cumulative traded volume

Here is a small demo of one of the features of the web trading platform:

Karvy Online App

Karvy Online Mobile app is very convenient and easy to use the mobile app. The app is available for Android, iOS, and Windows platforms and provides vital information around real-time quotes, market trends, live updates and so on. Some of the prominent features of this mobile app are:

• Trade in Equity, Derivatives and currency segments of BSE, NSE and MESI stock exchanges of the country.
• Track portfolio and transfer funds from the list of banks.
• Free to use even if you are not a client of Karvy Online. As a non-client, you get to access features such as market tracking and real-time news.
• Inbuilt features such as ‘Ask the Expert’ and ‘Live Chat’
• Get completely authenticated and secured trading experience

Here is how the Mobile App works:

At the same time, there are few concerns that have been raised around the mobile app, time and again by the clients, including:

• Login issues at times (with valid credentials)
• Session expiry issues
• Tough to perform fundamental analysis

Here is how the app rated at Google Play Store:

---

Karvy Online Research

The full-service stockbroker has been doing a decent job in providing pretty accurate recommendations and tips with its fundamental and technical level analysis. The broker provides the following reports to its clients with corresponding frequency cycles:

• Technical Reports
  • Daily
    • Wrap up
    • Morning Moves
  • Weekly
    • Weekly snippets
    • Smart trader
  • Monthly Value max reports
  • Special reports
  • Technical archives
• Fundamental Reports
  • Initial coverage
  • Company reports
  • Themantic reports
  • Economic and strategic reports
  • Special reports
• Other Reports
  • Company strategic reports

Furthermore, the broker has a prominent research team whose research gets published in multiple newspapers, financial journals, and industrial reports. The accuracy of the research provided by the broker is much better than the industry average and clients can certainly rely on the reports and recommendations offers by the stockbroker.

Here is one small snippet of one of the reports provided by the broker:

---

Karvy Online Customer Care

Karvy provides the following communication channels to its client for customer support:

• Offline branches
• Email support
• NRI phone support for Karvy NRI Trading
• Social Media
• Online web portal

With multiple channels to connect with clients, Karvy does a reasonable job at the quantity level. Furthermore, from the quality perspective, the broker has a set stipulated time period to provide resolution to different types of queries or concerns raised by the clients.

Although the turnaround time is maintained well, the messaging can be done in a more personalized manner. As of now, most of the communication seems to follow a pattern and users are provided with template responses.

This is one grey area within customer service provided by Karvy, otherwise, the broker stays up to the mark as far as expectations of the clients from a full-service stockbroker are concerned.

---

Karvy Online Pricing

Although Karvy is a full-service stockbroker, it charges its clients at around average level (it’s neither expensive nor cheap – value for money in a sense).

Here are the complete details:

Karvy Online Account Opening Charges

To open a 2-in-1 Demat and Trading account, here are the expenses that need to be taken care of:

 

Within full-service stockbroking space, account-related costs set up by Karvy beat industry benchmarks

Karvy Online Brokerage

There are a couple of plans at the retail and institutional level but at the fundamental level, these are the brokerage charges levied on customers:

 

Use this Karvy Online Brokerage Calculator for complete charges and your profit.

As shown above, the brokerage charges levied by Karvy are pretty much in line with the industry average. For instance, there are few full-service stockbrokers that charge equity delivery at 0.5%, and at the same time, a few stockbrokers charge around 0.1%.

With 0.3%, Karvy is pretty much from an average standpoint as far as the brokerage is concerned.

Furthermore, ₹30 per lot brokerage for options trading comes at a nominal price. Nonetheless, users are advised to negotiate the brokerage charges as much as possible, especially if you are starting with a reasonable initial trading deposit.

To know complete information about the Brokerage charges, click HERE.

Karvy Online Transaction Charges

Following are the transaction charges at the segment level levied by Karvy:

 

Like brokerage, the transaction charges levied by Karvy are reasonable too, across all the segments.

Karvy Online Margin

Following are the margins by Karvy:

 

If you are using services of Karvy, then you are given a decent exposure of up to 20 times for equity intraday, which is a pretty decent number as per industry standards. However, the currency segment attracts no exposure at all and this must be considered while you are looking to open an account with this full-service stockbroker.

---

Karvy Online Disadvantages:

Here are some of the concerns you must be aware of this broker:

• 3-in-1 account provision not available so while transferring funds, it takes unnecessary time wastage unlike ICICI Direct or HDFC Securities who offer such a provision.
• Trading platforms not available at Macintosh level, thus, limiting usage for such clients
• One of the lowest performing mobile apps in India

---

“Karvy Online has received complaints from its 26 clients this year with complaint percentage of 0.01%. The industry average is also 0.01%.” 

---

Karvy Online Advantages:

Here are the benefits of using the services of Karvy Online:

• Customer-centric features such as ‘Ask the Expert’ or ‘Live Chat with Experts’ is a unique way of making sure clients take the best of decisions with their money
• Decent research team
• Availability of multiple trading and investment products
• A vast network of branches and franchises providing immense offline support to clients across the country

---

Conclusion

“Karvy Online is certainly one of the top-performing full-service stock brokers in India. If you are looking for decent research, customer service, exposure at reasonable pricing, then Karvy Online is the broker for you.

Like others, it also has few weak links such as the mobile app, hidden charges etc, but you have to make sure you understand your requirements and preferences and based on that you can take a judgment.

However, if you are looking for economical alternatives, then there are a lot of discount stock brokers that can be opted for. But, in case your preference is towards a full-service broker, then Karvy has to be among the top ones.”

---

Looking to Open an Account?

Enter Your details here to get a FREE Call back:

Next Steps:

You need to provide a few documents to start your account opening process. The documents required are as follows:

1. ID Proof
2. An address proof
3. Bank statement for the last 6 months
4. Passport-sized photograph
5. AMC fees (if applicable)
6. Trading Account cheque

Once you are done with this, your account gets opened within 2-3 business days.

For more information, you can check this detailed review of documents required for demat account.

---

Karvy Online Membership Information:

Here is the membership information of the broker with different exchanges and intermediate parties:

 

The details can be verified from the corresponding websites of the exchanges.

---

Karvy Online FAQs:

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about Karvy Online:

Is Karvy Online suitable for beginner traders?

Yes, as long as you are not comparing Karvy with any discount stockbroker. Within full-service stockbroking space, Karvy is one of the recommendable full-service stockbrokers. It provides decent research, quality customer service at reasonable pricing. These are some of the aspects required by a beginner trader anyway.

However, if the price is one of your topmost criteria, then you may opt for a discount stock broker as well.

Can I trust Karvy Online? Is it a reliable stockbroker?

The broker has been around for a while now since its established way back in 1985. So, the trust factor has certainly been attained by the broker. Its complaint percentage is somewhere around the industry average, so that certainly helps.

As far as reliability is concerned, it does a good enough job in customer service as well as research reports and recommendations. Then, as far as it’s trading platforms are concerned, the mobile app is one big concern, otherwise, its other trading platforms perform in a decent manner.

In other words, you can certainly rely on this full-service stockbroker.

What is the account opening charges of Karvy Online?

The broker charges ₹420 for opening your Demat account while the trading account is opened for free. Furthermore, the Demat account AMC is charged at ₹500 with the first year as free. There is no AMC for the trading account.

What is the brokerage charged by Karvy Online?

Karvy is pretty reasonable in its brokerage with 0.3% in equity delivery and 0.03% in equity intraday segments. That basically means, if you trade for ₹1,00,000 you will be charged ₹300 brokerages for delivery and ₹30 for intraday trades. Overall, these values are pretty much in line with the industry average.

For more details, you can check out the ‘Brokerage’ section above.

How is the customer service of Karvy Online?

Karvy has done a structured job in setting up its customer support for clients. With multiple communication channels, the broker has a keen eye for its turnaround time but still, it needs to work on its messaging tone and personalization factor. Otherwise, customer support is at a reasonable level.

For more details, you can check out the ‘Customer Service’ section above.

What is the quality of research provided by Karvy Online?

The broker has structured multiple types of reports and recommendations based on different trading and investment segments. Overall accuracy and performance are good to go along with the coverage of research.

For more details, you can check out the ‘Research’ section above.

---

Karvy Online Branches

The full-service stockbroker is present in the following locations with its sub-broker and franchise offices across different parts of India:

You can check out detailed comparisons of Karvy Online Vs Other Stockbrokers here:

More on Karvy Online:

If you are looking to know more about Karvy Online, here are a few reference links for you: