‘Worst broker ever’: Kotak Securities app users rush to Twitter to vent fury amid tech glitches all day

With Kotak Neo app beset by tech glitches for whole day, many investors and traders on Monday took to Twitter to vent their anger. Users said they were unable to place orders, or square off positions as the app wasn’t working the whole day.

At 11:40 am on Monday, Kotak Securities took to the micro-blogging site to provide an update. “We’re facing issues with the NSE adapter and NSE orders in Kotak Neo currently. The trades in BSE are working fine. The team is actively working on resolving the issue. We regret the inconvenience caused,” it said.

However, even at 9:15 pm, Kotak Securities responded to a user admitting the glitches continue to persist. “Hello, we are extremely apologetic for this. We completely understand your side and the team is working on this. We are trying to ensure such instance does not repeat,” it said. 

“This must be the first time in Indian Stock Exchange history that a broker was down for the full day. Very bad service” wrote a Twitter user while tagging Kotak Securities. 

“Anyone facing problem with order placing in Kotak ? Third time in a row this is happening,” said another hassled user of the app.

“2022 Worst broker award goes to @kotaksecurities,” said another user.

An options trader said option price wasn’t getting updated since 45 minutes. Another options trader said he wasn’t able to book profit on Monday and faced a similar situation on Thursday. 

“How can Kotak just release a product with so many faults and not take any accountability?,” asked an user of Kotak Neo.

Many traders also posted screenshots of the losses incurred as they were not able to square off their positions on time.

“This (app glitch) is the heights of carelessness and unprofessionalism,” said another user.

Last month, markets watchdog directed stock exchanges to impose “financial disincentives” on stock brokers for technical glitches at their end, amid instances of snags at the brokers’ end impacting the overall trading system.

Besides, the stock brokers would have to inform the bourses within one hour of any glitch happening in their trading sysstems as well as submit a preliminary incident report in one day.

 As part of tightening the regulations, Sebi also said that the bourses should disseminate on their websites the instances of technical glitches occurring in the trading systems of stock brokers along with the Root Cause Analysis (RCA) of such issues. The new framework would be effective from April 1, 2023, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said in a circular.