As Paytm Money Ltd enables users to buy and sell mutual funds (MFs) through its app—launched on 4 September—some online firms and traditional brokerages are now shifting to selling direct plans, and many of them are also offering the service for free.
Kotak Securities Ltd, one of India’s largest stock brokerage and MF distributors as well as Coin by Zerodha have shifted to selling direct plans. Kotak Securities will soon launch a plan that will allow customers to buy and sell direct plans on its platform at ₹99 a month or ₹999 a year. Groww, an online platform to sell MFs that was launched in May 2017 by four Flipkart employees, shifted to selling direct plans in April 2018. Although Coin launched its operations in March 2017 by launching direct plans, it waived off its fee two weeks ago, partly in anticipation of the gush of investors that could take fancy to Paytm Money’s free offer.
