Zerodha Co-founder Nithin Kamath said on Tuesday that equity trades through the platform will remain free, while announcing an increase in securities transaction tax for derivatives in line with regulations.
The STT for options has increased from 0.0625% to 0.1%. The transaction fee has decreased to 0.035% from 0.0495%.
Consequently, the cost of trades has increased by 0.02303%, amounting to Rs 2,303 per crore of premium for selling on the NSE, while the BSE sees a rise of 0.0205%, equating to Rs 2,050 per crore.
For futures, the STT is hiked to 0.02% from 0.0125%, and the transaction charge is cut to 0.00173% from 0.00183%.
On the selling side, the changes will result in a net increase of 0.00735%, or Rs 735 per crore, in futures turnover.
The changes are effective from Oct. 1.
"Since STT is charged on the entire contract value for futures, whereas in options, it is charged only on the premium, the impact will be much larger for futures traders," Kamath said.
Zerodha's changes in transaction fees followed the Securities and Exchange Board of India's mandate issued in July, which requires stock exchanges to adopt a uniform flat fee structure called "true to label" for all members of market infrastructure institutions.
The directive aims to replace the varied slab-wise fees based on volume or activity that are currently charged by different stock exchanges. This change will remove any advantages based on size or activity level among members and ensure transparency for end clients.
Last week, the BSE, NSE, and commodity trading bourse MCX hiked their transaction charges on the derivatives segment to comply with SEBI's rules.
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