Mobile trading?

Mobile phone trading, which has recently made its debut in the Indian market, has made stock market trading easier than online trading! To use the mobile platform, you need to open an online trading account with a broker. .

Most brokers offer two options — one, using the handset's browser and two, using a downloadable application. You need to have internet connectivity in both the cases to reach the broker's server and trade. If you have GPRS activated in your phone, you can log on to your online trading account through your phone, just as you would with your desktop. You follow a URL and log in with the given username and password. Thereafter, you can follow the same steps as in an online trading account.

To make using the mobile platform easier, brokerages have also come up with a customised trading screen to fit into the mobile screen space.

Features

Trading through your mobile is fairly hassle-free and will require minimum key strokes. The mobile trading platform offers all that a stock investor would look for — facility to create a market watch window, look at best buy/sell bids for scrips, check margin status, place orders, option to view pending orders, modify or even cancel them. What's more, intra-day stock charts and specific scrip's history can also be viewed. Instant funds transfer is also possible.

Customers can also get stock advice through SMS. At times when there is a technical glitch or poor internet connection, you always have the option of dialling the call-centre number to know your position and modify trades.

How secure is it?

Stock-brokers have taken a few measures to ensure safety in using mobile platforms. For one, the password used on the mobile platform is hidden by a 128-bit encryption (algorithm), considered difficult for hackers to crack. Further, any password on the mobile platform remains live only for 15 days, post which the client is required to reset it.

Costs

If you're worried about extra charges, put it to rest. Brokers do not charge any additional levy on a customer requesting a mobile platform. What you do need to look out for, and need to factor in, are the costs of securing internet connectivity with adequate bandwidth on their phones.

For this, you must approach the mobile service provider. These days, there are an umpteen number of packages that mobile operators offer for internet access. Depending on whether you will be a regular or an occasional user, you can choose the package that will prove to be the most economical for your usage.

There are even packs where you can pay per day as well as ones where you pay according to the usage. Mobile operators charge anywhere between 5-10 paise per 10kb for browsing. On the mobile platform, a customer's usage will depend on the number of scrips he/she stores in the MW (market watch) page, how active the scrip is (the more active the scrip, the higher the number of times it needs to refresh) and the number of orders executed. Typically, a MW with ten active scrips may use approximately 300 KB an hour. This is taking into account the order entries, chart look-ups, etc. Execution of a single trade would consume roughly 90 bytes.

COMMENT NOW