There are n number of Youtube channels about the same but how would you invest your money? All these investments are subject to market risk. Do your research well, before investing your hard earned money.Once you are ready to invest, then I am sharing my experience with different apps and how one is better than the other.
1) Groww.in : In this digitalized and tech era, Groww has done it well in terms of Mobile App, Site or the service. The sign up is quite easy and the document verification happens via e-sign. Within 24-48 hours, your account is ready to invest and later can trade the shares. All investment options are available for BSE/NSE, or no matter what you would like to do from domestic to international investment. The app is well designed and I got my entire family signed up to it. We also got our first IPO (Adani Wilmar) via Groww.
I hardly had to contact them for some queries, and the customer service team is good. At times, you need to repeat your question as support people varies from 0 to Hero, but overall they are satisfactory. They also have a good KB and newsletter with latest updates. The best part I like about the app is the GUI and easy to track options. I didn't have to struggle from Account opening to invest (IPO, Stocks, Mutual Funds) in variety of portfolio.
2) Upstox: I signed up with multiple apps, which are known to be Top 3 and the 2nd in the list was Upstox. They also have an e-sign process to verify your account, however it wasn't working as expected from their end. The page was giving a white screen and despite explaining this to multiple people, it wasn't fixed initially. Obviously the diff. was support vs Dev team, but not sure about the backend system.
One thing to praise about them is the follow up. Even though they couldn't understand the issue properly and kept on giving me diff. instructions, one or the other person kept on calling me for a verified account. I also couldn't understand why there are two apps/versions for their app/site. On one phone I got latest version and another has an older version of the application. Why can't they have an updated single app for all users? Noone could explain till date.
After multiple tries, and with their intervention the account was verified. By then I was already habitual of using Groww because of easy navigation, hence didn't have much interface in their complex interface in comparison to Groww App.
Later on I tried to diverse my portfolio via Upstox but either the order failed or cancelled without proper reason. I can't even read the messages properly, and surely they need to improve the interface along with the services.
I also tried to open a support ticket but it doesn't work fine and keeps on throwing captcha verification failed error. Who has time to fill this form again and again? when I am already happy with Groww till date.
One day I also got a message for the refund of my deposit amount and now my wallet balance in 0. As of now I am least interested to do all this R&D on their Old/New App/site despite they claim something fees free (I don't remember if buy/sell is free or how it works with them) and applying all my IPOs via Groww.
3. Zerodha: is literally 0dha for me. I am still confused why people call it as number 1 when they have the most pathetic way to open an account in this digital era. Are we criminals or commodities to stand in front of the camera with some code written on a piece of Paper. Seriously? People need to see the stats and history of operation for all these Apps. If you compare the founded year and number of users in these apps then Zerodha is nowhere close to Rank 1.
As soon as I noticed this process, I stopped proceeding with the application and wanted a refund. I also opened a ticket with them and their no. 1 tantrum started. I still can't believe that few people literally made their parents stand in front of camera holding a piece of paper. Have some respect for your parents because of whom you exist in this world. Money is not everything and you had so many other options to open a broker account.
If you see the Wikipedia page for Zerodha, it clearly mentions so many outages and technical glitch. For a trading app, uptime is the most important thing because of which one can lose a lot of money. When I contacted their customer care for refund, they kept on boasting about their No.1 ranking without any proofs. They also stated that they work as per SEBI guidelines along with this account opening procedure. When I asked them about other apps, why those are not doing this manual way of verification incase it is a SEBI procedure (They were faking it on the name of SEBI) then they didn't have any answer.
They also claimed that account opening fee is non-refundable and mentioned in their T&C. I updated them that I haven't opened an account with them and neither willing to open in this pathetic way. It is my hard earned money, so please refund it. Despite a telephonic conversation, the customer service guy sent a different statement over email stating 24 hours blah blah and closed the case. As it was hardly few hours post our telephonic conversation, I looped in their CEO and then SEBI to look into the matter. They were claiming it to be a SEBI rule, which even a 10th Standard guy who is interested in Stocks can guess as fake claim.
You can refer the screenshot as shown below, they refunded my money which they should have without wasting my time and mind. If the owners of Zerodha are serious about their business then they need to look into their account opening procedure, customer service and User Interface else they would be part of history like many other businesses.
I would recommend you to use Groww in all possible way because of excellent navigation in user interface. Still, you need an alternative app then can opt for Upstox, but as mentioned above the app/site has its own challenges.
Are you using any other app and think it is better than above two? Do let us know in the comment section so that if feasible, we can give it a try.
