Fintech giant PhonePe has forayed into the stock broking space with Share.Market, under its subsidiary PhonePe Wealth Broking Private Ltd. The move is expected to help the Walmart-owned PhonePe take on players such as Zerodha, Upstox, Groww and ICICI Direct.
PhonePe said what differentiates ‘Share.Market’ is that it elevates discount broking by providing market intelligence and quantitative research-based WealthBaskets, a scalable technology platform.
It also offers a great customer experience for investors and traders alike.
“There are a lot of platforms like Zerodha, Groww and Upstox. I think each platform is distinct not only because of its pricing but also parameters such as product, content and quant,” said Sameer Nigam, chief executive officer (CEO) and founder, PhonePe.
He added, “I think we will also differentiate and our hope is that we will find the right match.”
Share.Market is available as a mobile app and a dedicated web platform, enabling retail investors to buy stocks, do intraday trades, buy curated WealthBaskets and mutual funds.
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Rahul Chari, chief technology officer (CTO) and co-founder of PhonePe said the firm would patiently grow in the market.
It would see benefits over the next 10 years as the participation of investors is expected to go up significantly.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (Sebi’s) initiatives like easy onboarding through Aadhaar and video know your customer (KYC), faster settlement times and regulatory interventions safeguarding customer funds, have resulted in an explosive growth of retail investors in the bourses.
This is also seen by the steady growth in Demat accounts and mutual fund SIPs.
Sundararaman Ramamurthy, managing director (MD) and CEO of BSE, who was also present at the PhonePe event, said that the increase in individual investors was 18 per cent from 2020 to 2023.
From 2020 to 2023, this increased by 176 per cent.
He said that BSE had around 50 million unique client codes (UCC) till 2020 and today it is 140 million.
He said the 90 million increase happened in the recent past, aided by the KYC registration process being simplified and digitised.
He said that a big chunk of these users are in the age group of 20-30. He added that growth is also coming from the remotest parts of the country.
PhonePe said Share.Market will bring a new dimension to stock investment by providing a competitive discount broking price.
This will help in creating an investing journey focused on wealth creation on a sustained basis, by taking a customer-first approach.
Ujjwal Jain, CEO, Share.Market said that there is vibrant growth in the active trading community, which trades with different objectives.
“We believe Share.Market will propel this growth with the backing of our technological prowess, reach, seamless onboarding, and superior product experience,” said Jain.
Share.Market offers stocks (intraday and delivery), mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and WealthBaskets. WealthBaskets are curated collections of stocks/investment products by Sebi-registered intermediaries. The aim is to enable active equity portfolio building with convenience and at low costs.
Sujit Modi, chief investment officer (CIO), Share.Market said that it will bring new demographics into broking, helping them get started on their investing journey with quant research-led offerings, including WealthBaskets.
Investors and traders will gain access to wealth-building opportunities powered by real-time, value-rich insights and intelligence.
These are embedded into products and do it yourself (DIY) tools deeply integrated with execution experience, enabling them to make informed decisions.
The platform will also host a dedicated markets section to track the stock market, indices, stocks, and sectors with an intuitive Watchlist tracker. PhonePe users can install the app as well as access the web platform by using their PhonePe-linked mobile numbers.