PhonePe, a company supported by Walmart, is stepping into the stock broking business with a new app called Share.Market. This app is part of PhonePe’s subsidiary, PhonePe Wealth Broking Pvt. Ltd, and will be led by Ujjwal Jain and Sujit Modi, the founders of WealthDesk and OpenQ. These platforms were bought by PhonePe for $75 million in May 2022. The goal of this new app is to make PhonePe’s wealth management services stronger and offer a special place for stock trading.
Share.Market is a discount broking app, which means regular people can use it to trade and invest in stocks, mutual funds, Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), and something called “WealthBaskets” – groups of investments with specific themes or ideas. It’s going into a market with other big players like Zerodha, Groww, Paytm Money, and Upstox, as well as traditional companies getting into digital trading. PhonePe plans to stand out by having good prices, lots of users, and many ways to reach customers.
The app is special because it really cares about knowing about the market. It has a lot of research and clever ideas for people. Sameer Nigam, the CEO of PhonePe, said, “More and more people want to trade in the stock market, but some get worried because they think they might lose money. We want to help people understand and learn, so they can join in.”
Share.Market will also let people track how well the stock market is doing, and other things like that. It will cost Rs 20 for every trade you do (whether it’s for the day or for keeping), and a one-time Rs 199 to start using the app. If your trades cost less than Rs 400, you don’t have to pay the Rs 20 fee. The WealthBasket trades are free of any fee.
PhonePe started in 2018 with PhonePe Wealth Services. Since then, it added things like mutual funds from other companies, insurance, ways to save money on taxes, easy-to-get money, and digital gold. It also asked to be allowed to make its own mutual funds in December 2021, but it changed its mind. Now, PhonePe wants to help people use its services and platform.
PhonePe is getting bigger and bigger. It has more than 450 million people signed up, and over 36 million shops use its digital payment system.
