Stock broking firm Zerodha gets RBI licence to operate as NBFC

Zerodha, a technology-driven zero brokerage firm has got licence from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as a non-banking finance company in the country.

Initially, the Bengaluru-based company aims to start with small value, short-term loans to consumers collateralised against their securities. The firm aims to cater the small ticket size loan which could be as low as Rs 5,000 and target lending of Rs 200 crore in the first year.

“Loan against securities currently is more of a product for the high net worth individuals. Our aim is to make it a retail product and also keep interest rates in the range of 12 to 15%,” said Nitin Kamath, Zerodha's founder, reports ET.

Floated in 2010, Zerodha has memberships on all the stock, commodity, and currency exchanges in India. It claims to be one of the top volume contributors on NSE, BSE, MCX-SX, and MCX, with an average daily trading turnover of over Rs 10,000 crores.

Coin, the company's mutual fund platform that lets the customer buy mutual funds online, completely commission-free, directly from asset management companies. The mutual fund bought through 'Coin' will be in demat form, with a convenience of one portfolio across equity, mutual fund, currency.

Also Read: Over 5 Mn users & NBFCs as clients, CreditMantri aims to build a credit-healthy nation

As of now, the startup claims to have added about 5.5 lakh investors in this financial year, of which 75,000 came on board in January alone. The startup's user base grew by 204 per cent in 2017-18 compared to the last fiscal.

The company hopes to add over 2.5 lakh more investors in the next year and target to expand their footprint to other cities. In mutual funds, the company’s assets under management touched Rs 1,000 crore in less than a year of launch.

Zerodha currently has 22 branches, 94 partner offices and six support/call & trade offices in India.