Converting demat accounts to NRI status — keep them separate or consolidate first?
I'm an Indian citizen moving to NRI status soon (working abroad (Germany) on a long-term assignment). I have two demat accounts in India:
- A larger one with a traditional advisor/distributor (mutual funds, managed with help from a dedicated person there)
- A smaller self-managed account with a discount broker (Zerodha) — just some shares I bought independently, no active trading planned
My advisor on account #1 is offering to handle the NRI conversion paperwork for me. I'd rather not fold my Zerodha holdings into that relationship and keep it as a separate, independent account — it's small but I'd like to manage it on my own.
Long term goal is to return to India and hence I would like to make occasional investments towards mutual funds in India.
Questions:
- Has anyone gone through Zerodha's specific resident-to-NRI demat conversion process recently (closing old account, opening new NRO/NRI one, self-transferring holdings)? How smooth/painful was it, and roughly how long did it take end-to-end?
- Anything you wish you'd known before doing this conversion (documents, attestation hassles, PIS bank account linkage, etc.)?
Appreciate any first-hand experience — I would like to keep my accounts independent rather than merging everything under one advisor. Although another option is to move my portfolio under the traditional portfolio and then convert it to NR Demat. This option does reduce administrative hassles at my end and keeps all my investments under one roof. Open to advice and suggestions.