How are shares traded?

Like in any other buying or selling, once the broker confirms the trade, if you are buying the share, you pay the broker the value of the shares and take delivery of the shares. If you are selling the shares, you hand over the equities to the broker and the broker will pay you for your shares.

Why are brokers required?

Investing in equities is quite risky. The broker is a professional, who knows the risk and can advise the investor accordingly. Secondly, an exchange will become an unwieldy mechanism if the entire universe of investors were to go and start making bids and offers. Reducing the number of individuals is a way of keeping control.

Third, equity trading can also be abused. To prevent these abuses, exchanges as well as the Government has a number of regulations in place. Restricting activity to the members of the exchange will enable the regulations to be followed, preventing abuse of the system.