We all have a strange love/hate relationship with ICICIDirect. We hate it when we have to contact the customer service and love it when we compare it to some of the other trading portals. I have compiled a list of ways you can survive investing through ICICI Direct and still keep your blood pressure low. However, please note that what I am saying is for investors and not day traders.
The website is good for investors who take delivery of their shares and not daytraders. For the past 2 years I have used ICICI Direct, it has been prompt with crediting the money or the shares into my demat account. No issues. The golden rule of any ICICI product is that it works great when it is on autopilot and not requiring any human handling. This is the core function of a trading portal for investors and ICICI Direct excels. The website is easy to use and very simple to place bulk orders of about 5-6 stocks in one go. The brokerage is higher than others but what I have heard is that it is still OK as compared to the service of others.
Opening your ICICI Direct account is a nightmare. The files get lost, no one has a clue if your file never arrives in the head office and the login id and passwords take ages to arrive. I have experienced it myself. But if you are patient enough to overcome all this you will be rewarded by a good ‘autopilot’ service mentioned in point 1.
The customer service is hopeless. Most people have no clue about anything because they are just out of college trying to earn some pocket money. So the golden rule is do not call them if you can avoid it. Read through the FAQs listed on their website. They are fairly detailed, if you still have any questions regarding how to place your trades, contact someone who has used the site before. With stock markets becoming such a mania, I am sure there will be someone you know who is using it.
One of the major risks of daytrading is that your trading website will crash at the critical moment. So I am mustering up courage to say don’t day-trade through ICICI Direct. It being a popular website will crash if the market tanks by more than 3%. And I do not know any site that will not.
Place all your orders before the market opens preferably the previous night. This is the time when there are no crowds at the website and everything is smooth. The max you should do during market hours is maybe modify the limit price of an order if things do not go according to your plan. This also brings in a discipline to your investing process. If you think this is old fashioned and you need to act at lightning speed on realtime information, just remember that Warren Buffet and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala did not make their billions by daytrading or panic trading.
You cannot see your trade book in ICICI Direct for previous days when the markets are open. So create a separate portfolio at some other website such as https://moneycontrol.com with the details of your share quantity and buying price.
Getting TDS certificates(for NRIs) is again a pain. The courier is supposed to be delivered but never arrives. Duplicate TDS certificate takes ages. And when you ask them to just to give the details in the TDS certificate while you wait for the physical copy, they just repeat like a parrot to apply for the duplicate.
If for any reason you have to contact their customer service or they loose our documents once again in some Mumbai floods, we have to go through the pain of dealing with them. But no one said making money was easy. And our main aim is to make money and not to improve the customer service of ICICI Direct.