TAKE YOUR PORTFOLIO GLOBAL

Currently, you can invest up to USD 250,000 every year in foreign stocks from India. This amount can change, subject to RBI guidelines. So your investments in US securities are also governed by the same limit.

Foreign investments fall under clearly defined RBI guidelines. The remittance of money for foreign investments comes under the Liberalized Remittance Scheme (LRS). Under LRS an Individual can remit up to USD 250,000 per financial year to invest in foreign equities done through an authorized dealer (commonly, your bank). As per the RBI policy, having a PAN card is required to purchase shares in foreign countries. You can find more information on the LRS scheme on the RBI website here.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. None of the contents of this article should be treated as tax advice. Please consult a qualified tax consultant or expert with your specific taxation situation for appropriate advice.

This platform to invest in international securities is provided to you in partnership with Borderless Investing Inc.

You own the stocks through your account with Stockal and DriveWealth.

Stockal’s US brokerage partner, DriveWealth, works with Axos Clearing and Citigroup, New York, for the custody of brokerage accounts.

Your investing account is insured. DriveWealth LLC, a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), will serve as the custodian for your securities account.  In the event that DriveWealth LLC fails and is placed in liquidation under the Securities Investor Protection Act, securities in your brokerage account may be protected up to $500,000.  For details, please see www.sipc.org

Your investing (brokerage) account is opened at Stockal.s US brokerage and clearing services partner DriveWealth – a FINRA regulated brokerage firm. It is a licensed carrying and self-clearing broker offering brokerage services to global investors.

The custody of your account, in turn, would be held by one of the custodian partners of DriveWealth. If you need more information regarding the custody of your account, you can reach our support team for the resolution of any additional doubts.

No. Unlike most traditional investing platforms, we place no restrictions on user accounts. There is no account minimum at Stockal.

That said, in order to see benefits of investing accrue to you, we recommend that you invest at least $100 to start off.

To add funds to your account, you need to click on the “Add funds” button available on Stockal’s dashboard. Enter the amount you want to send to your brokerage account. A pre-filled LRS form (more on LRS separately) will be presented to you. Verify the information and refer to the following procedural details depending on your residential country:

From India: If you are an Indian Resident, you will be remitting money under RBI’s Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS). Currently, ICICI, IDFC, and HDFC Bank account holders can complete the LRS process online by signing into our platform and following the steps mentioned for fund transfer.

For other banks, select the offline option to download and print A2 form and schedule a pick-up for the documents via our delivery partners.

From international locations: If you are remitting money in your Stockal account from any location outside India, you will be able to directly transfer the money from your bank account as a wire transaction. Please download the beneficiary account instructions after clicking on the “Add Funds” button.

All you need to do is click the “Withdraw” button on your Portfolio page or inside “My Account”.

You will be shown how much money is available for you to withdraw. This is the “cash” in your account – either uninvested money or generated from sales of securities you, previously, owned. You can place a withdrawal request and the money will be wired to your domestic bank account. It takes 4-5 business days for the money to hit your account. Any request above $10,000 requires an additional email approval.

There is a $10 fee associated with withdrawals, charged by the US bank, so the cash balance in your account should be at least $10 at the time of placing the withdrawal request.

This is an advantage for 2 main reasons:
You don’t have to think in terms of “how many shares should I buy?”. You can simply decide to invest a certain amount of money and the number of units to be allocated to you gets automatically calculated and would get credited to your account. For instance, if a stock is valued at $27 and you decide to invest $100 in it, you will get 3.70 shares.

Many popular US stocks are more expensive than typical Indian stocks. While a single Apple stock is valued at over $200 as of this writing, Google costs over $1,000 and Amazon costs more than $2,000. Pepsi, Nike, Coke – all between $100 and $200 as of the writing date. Hence, with fractional stocks, you could effectively build a pretty diversified portfolio with small amounts of money.

Disclaimer: Stock prices mentioned here are for representational purposes only and are not to be considered investment advice

Stacks are pre-configured baskets of stocks & ETFs that you can invest in with a single click. Stockal aims to solve the challenge of “what to invest” with curated ready-made portfolios that are centered around an idea or a theme. Each stack is developed by leading financial experts to match different investment strategies, risk-tolerance, and investing goals.

Each STACK has an “AUM Fee” which is computed as a percentage of the investment amount. The AUM fee can range from 1% to 5% of the investment amount – and is charged on a periodic basis (quarterly or annually). The AUM fee for a particular STACK is available on the individual STACK detail page.

Yes, the account holder can fill out the Transfer of Death Certificate which is available once they contact the support team.

Yes, any cost incurred on account of sale or transfer of asset is allowable as a deduction while computing the Capital Gains. However, it is pertinent to note that AUM charges and annual subscription charges incurred cannot be claimed as deduction as they are related to holding of capital asset and not in relation to transfer of capital asset.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. None of the contents of this article should be treated as advice.

Yes, tax needs to be paid on Foreign dividend both in US and India.

However, an Indian Resident individual can claim Tax credit of taxes paid in US by virtue of Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) entered into between India and US by filing a return of income in India.

Maximum credit that can be availed is the amount of tax that should have been paid in India on the transaction if there is no DTAA.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. None of the contents of this article should be treated as advice.