Kotak Securities is one of the oldest brokers in India. It was founded nearly 3 decades back, has a market share of around 5%, and over 200k clients. M Stock is one of its alternatives. It was founded last year and is owned by Mirae Assets. It is one of the fastest-growing online brokers in India. According to the firm, over 4 crore trades have been placed so far on their platform and 73% of their users are active traders/investors. Both companies i.e. Mstock and Kotak Securities have zero brokerage plans but which one among the two is better? Let’s find it out!
M Stock vs Kotak Securities
User interface
MStock’s UI is very simple and intuitive but it is among the worst I have come across on the internet. Its counterpart’s UI looks clean and beautiful but has some issues. For instance, a part of the watchlist is hidden under the browser’s sidebar. Also, the scrollbar doesn’t appear when you click on the scrip and want to navigate to the “Overview” section.
Brokerage
M stock is a true zero brokerage firm. It won’t charge you anything for any type of order. Its counterpart charges 20 Rs brokerage on delivery trades. You won’t have to pay money if you square off the positions on the same day of taking them. What is zero brokerage? Companies such as Zerodha, Upstocks, Groww, etc contract note will boast a debit of 20 Rs for each buy and sell order you place with them i.e. if you place 99 orders, you will have to pay 1980 Rs brokerage to the firm. It doesn’t matter whether you have made a profit or not. If you use Kotak Securities or M Stock, you will save 1980 Rs if you place 99 orders (buy and sell).
K Sec has introduced these four plans – Trade Free/Youth/Max and Dealer Assisted. The Youth subscription plan is for users aged under 30. Max users won’t have to pay a fee for activating the MTF segment. The Free plan users will have to do so.
Account opening charges
KSec doesn’t ask users to pay a fee to open their trading account. Also, you won’t have to pay the maintenance fee for the first year. Its alternative charges a one-time fee of 999 Rs for users who don’t want to pay brokerage for intraday trades. M stock has also launched a Rs 149 plan wherein you have to pay a 20 Rs fee for intraday trades only. For other trades, the brokerage is zero. The firm debits a maintenance fee from your fund every quarter if you don’t opt for a lifetime free maintenance subscription while opening an account with them.
TradingView Pro
M Stock has integrated TradingView Pro with their platform. Thus, you can change the layouts, use premium indicators, etc. K Sec users get access to the free edition of TradingView. You can see only one chart at a time. The charts work like charm and load instantly on M Stock. Kotak Securities website takes some time to open them. When you switch from the current tab to another, you’ll see a large blank space instead of the graph.
Nest Terminal
Nest is a powerful desktop trading software/terminal. Its developer has stopped rolling out updates to the terminal but the software is reliable and widely used. KSec offers the latest edition of Nest to users. To use get access to it, the user must make a request online via the KS bot. The bot’s reply will have a link to download Nest. MStock doesn’t offer a desktop trading application yet.
MTF
MTF is a feature that allows you to purchase more quantity of shares than what your budget allows. It is a paid feature in Kotak Securities and the interest charged on the premium by the company is around 10%. Mstock MTF feature is available to all users. They will have to pay an interest rate of 7.99 along with the premium.
Bank accounts and fund transfers
Modifying or adding bank details with Mstock is currently not possible online. You will have to write a letter to the company to do so. K Sec lets users add/link bank accounts online. Fund transfers and withdrawals are quick with both services.
My experience with both the platforms
Kotak Securities is my favorite broker among the two. Mstock’s UI is ugly and the web and mobile applications suffer from serious performance-related issues. I closed my trading account with them last month. KSec’s suffers from handshake issues often. It was down for several hours in the first week of December but since then the application worked flawlessly. The issue that I have mentioned is the only one I have faced to date.
