How to choose an online broker? In terms of service, they differ little from each other, the decisive factor is the price of service

Private trader Andrey has been making a living by playing the stock market via the Internet for several years now. “I always keep in mind that you can’t make trades that will return less than 0.1%,” he says. It's all about the commission that the broker takes. Andrey trades through Alfa Bank using the Alfa Direct system. Until recently, commissions amounted to 0.09% of turnover, if we add the MICEX commission (0.01%), it turns out to be just 0.1%.

Since May, Alfa Bank has reduced the commission to 0.05% for players with low turnover and to 0.01% for traders whose monthly turnover exceeds 250 million rubles. Over the eight years of the existence of Internet trading in Russia, brokers have reduced fees for their services by an order of magnitude - from 0.2–0.3% of turnover to hundredths, and in some cases even thousandths of a percent.

Where are the cheapest brokerage services? We took two virtual players with the same portfolio (500,000 rubles) and different strategies. The “Speculator” uses borrowed funds (leverage of 1:1) and trades daily for 20 million rubles (monthly turnover is 400 million rubles), the “Investor” enters into a transaction for 100,000 rubles per day (monthly turnover is 2 million rubles). In total, we assessed the 15 largest brokers by the number of active accounts on the MICEX Stock Exchange. The calculations took into account the exchange commission and depository services (see tables).

The cheapest way to trade shares is through Uralsib Capital - Financial Services. The company does not take commissions; its clients pay only to the exchange. Uralsib, a newcomer among online brokers, has been using this marketing ploy for almost a year. In August the company will introduce commissions, but, as it promises, not too high.

The most expensive broker was Troika Dialog. Its tariff results in a final 0.128% of turnover for the “Investor” and 0.0363% for the “Speculator”. With a turnover of 20 million rubles per day, monthly costs will be 145,020 rubles. The company does not comment on tariff policy.

How much will you have to pay for similar services in the West? For example, Charles Schwab charges clients who make fewer than 120 trades per year $0.015 per share; speculators pay $8.95 per trade. If we translate these tariffs into our coordinate system (the most popular shares on the NASDAQ exchange - Microsoft and Intel - cost about $30), it turns out that ordinary investors pay 0.05% of turnover, and speculators - 0.02%. In our ranking tables, an American bank would be somewhere in the middle, i.e. the cost of services in Russia and the USA is comparable.

Dmitry Serebrennikov, head of the investment division of the Finam group, promises to reduce tariffs again as soon as the growth of the client base reaches 20-30%. “We don’t look at competitors. Our turnover allows us to reduce tariffs,” he says. And the main income of brokers is still not commissions, but income from margin lending, the minimum rate for which is now 10% per annum.

Tariff schedule

Tariff schedule