In the series of post on Stock Broker’s Review let me review ICICIDirect.com’s services and share my views and experience about them.
Positives
- Very well integrated with the bank account.
- Very easy to use mutual fund and IPO investment using an online interface.
- Transfer of money from Bank to Demat Account and vice versa is instant and hassle free.
Negatives
- Brokerage – They have reduced it by 50% recently but yet it is highest and you cannot afford as a trader. At least I cannot.
- There is virtually no phone trading facility available.
- They still charge you fees for using web interface to buy mutual funds.
- One of the biggest disadvantages of ICICIDirect account is too many restrictions.
- There is no option for you to sell your cash based purchase the same day.
- At times you do not have the option of BTST (Buy Today, Sell tomorrow) and no one could answer me why?
- If you open an account with ICICIDirect the representative will recommend you an ICICIBank zero balance account but suddenly after an year or so they will convert that zero balance account into a normal savings account where you need to maintain an average quarterly balance. So do not go with ICICIDirect.com unless you already maintain and ICICI Bank account and only prefer to do year+ investments and do not prefer to trade in Equity Market along with investment.
I am planning to get my ICICIDirect account closed but the issue is I have some ELSS funds into my ICICIDirect account I may need to wait for 3 more years before I can withdraw my ELSS funds because transfer of those would take hell lot of effort from my end.
If you have some more experience with ICICIDirect, share them in comments below.
