Detailed and Unbiased Upstox Review 2021: Upstox, aka RKSV Securities, is the second biggest stockbroker in India with over 40 lakhs registered clients on its platform. It provides stockbroking services with facilities to invest or trade in Stocks, Futures, Options, Commodities, and currency. They also offer add-on facilities of FREE investing in IPOs, Digital Gold, and Mutual fund.
In this article, we’ll look into Upstox Review, covering Upstox details like the company background, Account Opening Charges, Brokerage Charges, Trading Platforms, Pros and Cons of Upstox, and more. Keep Reading.
Quick Link to Open Your Demat Account with Upstox!
Table of Contents
Upstox Review: About the Stockbroker
One of the first brokers to start a discount broking firm in India, Upstox is a technology-driven discount broking firm that provides a 100% online trading and investing platform to its customers. Upstox was formerly known as RKSV Securities and it is supported by big investors namely Ratan Tata & Tiger Global Management, GVK Davix, and Kalaari Capital.
An online-only business model and one office is based out of Mumbai helped the company cut the costs that enabled the company to provide free delivery-based trading and low-cost brokerage for other transactions. However, they have expanded their offices to tier-2 and tier-3 cities with limited facilities.
The discount brokerage and investors’ security are the peculiar foundations of this company. The company considers the safety of its investors’ money as the foremost thing for them. From stocks, options, futures, currency, commodities to its related services, the tech-first firm helps retail investors, youngsters as well as institutional corporations in their investment and trading-related decisions.
— Upstox Beginning — Who are the founders and How did it start
The founders Mr. Ravi Kumar, Mr. Raghu Kumar, and Mr. Shrinivas Vishwanath started RKSV Securities in 2009, right amid the global financial crisis. The name RKSV is derived from the initials of the founder’s names — Ravi Kumar(RK), Raghu Kumar (RK), and Shrinivas Vishwanath (SV).
Before RKSV, Raghu, and Ravi had started a proprietary firm in the US where they made huge money in just two years however, they lost all the money during the market crash in 2008. Hence, they decided to come back to India and founded RKSV Securities along with the third co-founder Shrinivas.
In the beginning, they were trading themselves through a proprietary firm but later they found out that the brokerage costs during those years were too high for anyone and the technology was a bit too old. With these in mind, they come up with a zero-brokerage plan and an online-only trading platform through RKSV Securities.
Raghu has studied Bachelor of Science in Actuarial Service and Finance while Ravi holds the same degree with a specialization in Information and Computer Science. The brother duo would develop trading models wherein Raghu wrote Algorithms and Ravi would code them for their proprietary firm in the US.
A typical proprietary firm operates in a way where they trade on their own with their own money in order to earn profits. Shrinivas too has a Bachelor of Science degree and worked with Cerner Corporation, Morgan Stanley, and Citi after which he joined hands with the Kumar Brothers to start RKSV.
To bring and promote cost-effective Exchange Traded Funds, Upstox associated up with Tavaga Advisory Services in 2019. Tavaga is a leading investment advisory firm with this deal, Upstox aims to help investors save more money and reach user-defined targets.
In September 2019, they also got one more investor Tiger Global Management — Venture Capital Firm from New York, worth Rs. 177 crores. With this funding, Upstox aimed to improve product offerings with the addition of the latest and advanced technologies. They have also developed their own trading platform to provide their customers ease of trading and investment experience along with the technology-driven other facilities.
With the unbeatable brokerage charges, they offer a wide range of products and services through their in-house trading platforms Upstox Pro Web and Upstox Pro Mobile. Enabled with rich and advanced trading features, the Upstox trading platform not only provides trading but also offers charting, analysis with the platform base of Omnisys NEST OMS (Order Management System) and Omnisys NEST RMS (Risk Management System).
They also offer various tools to their investors such as Brokerage Calculator, Upstox Margin Calculator, Options Strategy Builder, and Order Generator to enable customers to find the charges and build the strategies on their own in line with their specific requirements. It is highly user-friendly as you only have to fill in the details and you will get the outcome on your screen just in no time.
Account Opening Charges of Upstox
The Account Opening Charges for Upstox is Rs 199.
Currently, Upstox is offering Intraday Equity, F&O, Commodity, and Currency trades at zero brokerage charges up to ₹1000 for the first 7 days# from when your Upstox account has been created. After 7 days, brokerage of ₹20*/order would be applicable.
To avail the benefits, here is the quick Link to Open Your Demat Account with Upstox!
Brokerage Charges of Upstox
- Stock Investing: Rs 0 (Investing in Stocks (Equity Delivery Orders) are brokerage-free)
- Intraday and F&O trades: Rs 20 (0.05% or up to ₹20 for all Intraday & F&O, Currencies & Commodity Orders)
- Digital Gold & Mutual Funds: Rs 0 (Digital Gold and Direct Mutual Fund investments are brokerage free)
Upstox offers Zero brokerage on Equity Delivery trades. This means that you don’t have to pay any brokerage on Upstox while making long-term investments. For Intraday, Futures and options, and all other trades, Upstox charges a brokerage of Rs 20 per trade.
Here are the detailed brokerage charges of Upstox:
- Equity Delivery: Zero Brokerage
- Equity Intraday: ₹20 per executed order or 0.05% (whichever is lower)
- Equity Options: Flat ₹20 per executed order.
- Equity Futures: ₹20 per executed order or 0.05% (whichever is lower)
- Currency Futures: ₹20 per executed order or 0.05% (whichever is lower).
- Currency Options: Flat ₹20 per executed order.
- Commodity Futures: ₹20 per executed order or 0.05% (whichever is lower)
- Commodity Options: Flat ₹20 per executed order.
Quick Note: Upstox Charges a Maintenance charge of ₹25 + 18% GST to maintain your Demat account with them every month, in addition to brokerage charges. This rate is similar to what other discount charges as the Annual Maintenance Charge (AMC).
Trading Platforms by Upstox
Upstox offers cutting-edge mobile and web-based trading platforms to its customers. Here are a few of the popular trading and investing platforms offered by Upstox:
Upstox Pro Trading Platform: This desktop-based trading platform allows investors to easily buy and sell any scrip. It provides the best charting tools to spot market trends and make informed decisions. Here, customers can customize their charts with 100+ indicators and become truly pro traders. Requiring only a basic internet connection, this trading platform allows investors and traders to explore the market and study them thoroughly.
Upstox Pro App: The Application is also in-house creation of Upstox professionals that offers an easy and flexible trading experience to its traders. Users can easily boost their profits by customizing their trading preferences and can place orders such as Cover Orders and Bracket Orders on mobile. Upstox customer review is great for their Pro mobile trading app.
Option Strategy Builder: The option strategy builder allows you to construct different options and future products.
Upstox Mutual funds: This product is specifically designed for Upstox users to invest in mutual funds for free. Here, users can buy mutual funds directly at a very low cost and it allows users to match their portfolio with their set financial goals.
Upstox IPO: Using this platform by Upstox, customers can easily invest in the latest IPOs and apply for stocks that are getting listed, quickly with mobile UPI. It requires two steps: Create your IPO Application Select an IPO whose application is open where users can Add up to 3 bids within the price range and confirm their application. Next, they have to accept the UPI mandate and Block funds on their mobile UPI app.
Upstox Digital Gold: The Digital Gold offering of Upstox Gold is a convenient, safe, and secure option of purchasing pure physical gold online, from the comfort of your home. However, please note that Upstox Gold is only the distributor of Digital Gold. The buying and selling of gold is powered by their partner, Augmont. Using this platform, customers can invest in pure gold online, at a live market price, starting from ₹1.
Upstox Review: Pros and Cons of Upstox
Next, let us look into a few of the pros and cons of Upstox demat and trading account that you should know:
— Pros of Upstox
- Upstox is the second-largest Discount Broker with flat brokerage charges while delivery trades are provided for free.
- They constantly work on product innovations and which why they offer their own developed trading platforms, smart tools to plan and create customized strategies for a return-rich portfolio, and many other partner products.
- Web-based platform and Mobile trading apps available for both Android and iOS phones. No charges for using the software to users.
- Margin Against Shares is available.
- After Market Order (AMO), Cover Order, and Trailing-Stop/Stop-Loss (SL) are available on both web and mobile.
- Upstox Pro Web Trading Platform offers multiple indicators to monitor markets on the go.
- They offer Bridge For AmiBroker where users can write strategies on AmiBroker AFL & place trades on Upstox with the power of Upstox AmiBroker bridge and AlgoLab.
- They also offer Upstox Option Chain Tool and Upstox Strategy Builder for Options where traders can build personalized strategies for F&O.
- Upstox Developer Console helps you build (code) your own trading app using languages such as Python.
- FREE IPO, Mutual Funds, and Gold investment options available using the same account.
- They provide additional tools such as Upstox brokerage and margin calculators.
- Upstox also has started Investor education initiatives through its learning blogs and Youtube channel.
— Cons of Upstox
- Being an online discount broker, they do not offer advisory services.
- Margin Funding is not available on delivery trades.
- Upstox doesn’t offer unlimited monthly trading plans.
- Call and trade fee is charged at extra Rs 20 per executed order (Rs 20 Brokerage + Rs 20 Call & Trade Fee).
- Upstox do not offer core research and advisory services and therefore, users are not provided with stock tips and recommendations.
- They do not offer Trading, Demat, and Bank accounts — a 3-in-1 account as the company does not provide banking services.
- Since it is an online trading platform it does not have a physical presence in many locations.
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How to Open Your Demat Account with Upstox?
Before ending this Upstox Review, let’s also look into the account opening process of Demat and trading account with Upstox compared to other discount brokers.
Upstox offers Digital Demat account opening i.e. Paperless and hassle-free account opening process. The onboarding process on Upstox for opening a demat account is easier and faster when compared to the account opening process of other leading stock brokers in India.
In fact, the Demat account opening process for Upstox is pretty straightforward and can be completed within 10 minutes if you’ve got all the digital copies of all documents.
Once the documents have been submitted, your account will be verified and activated by the Upstox team and it generally takes 24–48 hours to get your account verified and activated.
— Documents Required to Open Upstox Demat Account
Before looking into the steps to open your demat account with Upstox, here are the documents required to open a demat and trading account at Upstox. We will recommend keeping soft copies of all these documents ready before you apply for opening the accounts as you’ve to upload them during the account opening process:
- PAN CARD
- Aadhar Card
- Bank Account Details and Proof
- Your Signature
- *Income proof(Optional): Proof of Income is required if you wish to trade in F&O or commodity.
In addition, you’ll require to have a webcam on your phone/laptop so that you can complete the IPV (In-person verification) process where you’ll need to capture an image of yourself (or the customer who wishes to open demat account) and upload to the platform.
To get started, here is the direct link to the account opening page at Upstox.
On this page, the first step is to signup using your mobile number plus email id and verifying the OTP. Then, you’ll be required to enter your PAN, bank account, Aadhar verification, and personal details to continue with the signup.
— Account Opening Process of Upstox Demat Account
Here are the steps to open your demat account with Upstox:
Step 1: Go to Upstox Account Opening Page
Step 2: Verify Your Mobile With OTP and Start Application
Step 3: Fill Your PAN and DOB Details
Step 4: Provide your personal details like Father’s Name, Occupation, Marital Status, Income, etc.
Step 5: Enter your digital Signature
Step 6: Complete your IPV process by uploading your photo using a Webcam
Step 7: Enter Your Bank Details
Step 8: Verify your email id with OTP
Step 9: Make the Account opening charges payment
Step 10: Segment Selection (Select Equities, Futures & Options, Commodities, Currency or the preferred segments that you want to activate your account to trade)
Step 11: Digitally eSign using Aadhar based OTP on NSDL eSign Portal
Step 12: Your Application is Submitted!
Once document submission is done, you’ll receive your Login credentials (Upstox Username and password) via email after your account is activated. It typically takes under 24-48 hours after submitting documents to get the login details.
All the instructions are clearly mentioned in the each-step of the account opening page. If you are good at reading and following instructions efficiently, then you do not need to read this entire post. Just go to the account opening page, follow the instructions, upload the documents and your account will be opened.
Closing Details of Upstox Review
In this article, we looked into Upstox Review. Upstox, aka RKSV Securities, has come up far to becoming the second-largest stockbroker in India and defeating prominent names in the Indian stock broking industry like HDFC Securities, ICICI Direct, Kotak Securities, Motilal Oswal, Angel Broking, etc. Moreover, it is giving tough competition to Zerodha, the biggest stockbroker in India and a Unicorn Startup.
It’s discounted brokerage model, superior interface and cutting edge trading platform offering has helped it become one of the top priority for every trade and investor in India. If you are looking for a fast and reliable trading platform, with a reputable background and affordable brokerage charges, Upstox is the go-to account to open demat and trading.
Do comment below what’s your review of Upstox in the comment section below? What did you like about this discount stockbroker and where do you think Upstox can improve? Have a great day. Happy investing and trading.
Kritesh (Tweet here) is the Founder & CEO of Trade Brains & FinGrad. He is an NSE Certified Equity Fundamental Analyst with +7 Years of Experience in Share Market Investing. Kritesh frequently writes about Share Market Investing and IPOs and publishes his personal insights on the market.