Stock brokers see a record number of customer additions even as markets slump

At a time when traditional brokers are struggling to continue their services due to nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus pandemic, online brokerages, including Upstox, 5paisa.com and Angel Broking, have seen a spurt in business. The current crisis seems to be a blessing in disguise for these brokerages, as their number of clients as well as orders increased in March. Moreover, there has been a significant increase in trading volumes and demand for opening new accounts as well.

"Currently our entire operations is being carried out smoothly without any hindrance. As 99.9 per cent of our turnover happens online there is hardly any impact on our business. Actually with markets being volatile client activity has increased and business has shown decent growth this month," said Prakarsh Gagdani, CEO, 5Paisa.com.

Though our customer support on telephone is not working, the company is answering all client queries on emails and hence are able to manage everything properly, he added.

Gagdani further said, in March, "the acquisition growth rate grew by over 60 per cent and revenues also saw a decent growth".

Angel Broking CMO Prabhakar Tiwari said, "the current crisis is a blessing in disguise to help showcase our digital brokerage services, as a much superior option in comparison to other traditional broking firms".

The brokerage saw more than one lakh new customers acquisition in March. Interestingly, a significant number of customers are from tier II and tier III towns.

"Even our existing customers have rewarded us by doing more than two million trades in a single day creating a new record last month," he added.

Upstox said it is witnessing unprecedented increase in trading volumes and demand for opening new accounts.

The online discount broker said it had witnessed about 55 per cent increase in the number of orders in March compared to the previous month.

Further, it also expects to beat its earlier industry record of 1 lakh new client additions in a single month. It had registered an addition of 1 lakh new clients in December.

Apart from these, investment platform Smallcase Technologies has also seen an increase in its new investor numbers in March.

The platform has registered a 1.5 times increase in new investors in March compared to the previous month. It has seen a 3.5 times growth in its new accounts leads in March on a month-on-month basis. Even, orders have risen by 1.6 times in the month.

Smallcase is an investment platform that allows Sebi registered professionals to efficiently share their research as investable "smallcases" to their clients.

A 21-day nationwide lockdown is in force in the country to contain the spread of coronavirus pandemic.

Stock markets markets across the world witnessed high volatility in March amid concerns of coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the global economy. In India, the stock market saw massive decline in the month of March, including trading halt on two occasions last month.

Last month, stock brokers' association Amfi had urged the markets regulator Sebi to allow systematic closure of the stock markets till the nationwide lockdown remains in force.

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