Mumbai-based investor and IVF specialist Dr Aniruddha Malpani has alleged that online broking firm Zerodha blocked his attempt to withdraw funds from his demat account, despite having a withdrawable balance of over Rs 18 crore. He said that Zerodha’s platform limited withdrawals to Rs 5 crore per day, calling it a “scam.”
Dr Malpani, who is also the founder of Malpani Ventures, shared screenshots from his Zerodha account showing an account value of around Rs 42.93 crore, with a used margin of about Rs 24.46 crore and a withdrawable balance of over Rs 18.46 crore. In a post on X, he wrote, “The Zerodha scam! They don’t allow me to withdraw my own money from their account, saying the daily limit for withdrawal is Rs 5 crores. They use my money for free. This is unfair,” tagging Zerodha co-founder and CEO Nithin Kamath.
Responding to the allegation, Zerodha CEO Nithin Kamath clarified that the withdrawal request had already been processed and that the Rs 5 crore threshold is not a limit but a security measure. Kamath wrote, “Hi Dr, your payout requests were processed yesterday. We need to ensure that we have checks in place when clients withdraw funds. Hence, Rs 5 crore is the threshold at which we ask customers to create tickets to withdraw.”
According to Zerodha’s withdrawal policy, clients can place withdrawal requests of up to Rs 5 crore directly through the platform. For amounts exceeding that threshold, users are required to raise a support ticket for additional verification before the payout is processed.
Industry experts have noted that such checks are standard practice across financial institutions, as high-value withdrawals typically require manual confirmation to prevent fraud or errors.
The exchange between Dr Malpani and Zerodha quickly went viral on social media, sparking debate among investors about withdrawal processes, transparency, and the balance between security and accessibility in online trading platforms.
