Maximus's Onboarding · optional
Connecting Alpaca
The dollar book runs on Alpaca, a separate US broker, in a separate US-dollar account opened in your own name. It is entirely optional — the rupee book works on its own — and it never touches your rupee money. As with Shoonya, at no point do you send us a password.
Before you begin
This adds a second, separate book to your desk. If you only want the rupee book, stop here — you already have everything you need. Everyone starts this one in paper mode too, on a simulated balance, and nothing about your rupee book changes because you connected this.
Please read the risk disclosure first. This account carries the market risk you already know, plus one you may not have priced in yet — see the currency note in step VI — and it is protected the way a US brokerage account is protected, not the way an Indian one is.
What you'll need to hand
- A passport — Alpaca's identity check is built for a global audience and wants an internationally recognised photo ID, not a PAN card or Aadhaar alone
- PAN card, which becomes your Tax ID on the application
- Proof of address — a recent utility bill or bank statement
- A selfie for identity verification
- Your bank account details — the one you'll later send money abroad from, at a bank authorised to handle foreign remittances (most large Indian banks are)
- Patience for one form your bank will hand you when you're ready to fund it — see step VI
- IOpen an Alpaca account
- IIGet your API credentials
- IIISend us two things — and nothing else
- IVWatch it in paper mode
- VApply for live-trading approval
- VISend the money — the LRS way
- VIIGoing live is your switch
At Alpaca
On Alpaca's own site. We are not involved in any of it and cannot do it for you — and unlike Shoonya, there is no later step where you authorise us on their site either. Steps I and II are the whole of it.
Open an Alpaca account
About 15 minutesAlpaca Securities LLC is a US-regulated broker that accepts residents of many countries, India included, opening an account directly in their own name.
Open an account at app.alpaca.markets →
- Choose an Individual account, not Business.
- Confirm you're a non-US tax resident and select India as your country of tax residence.
- Fill in your personal, employment and financial details, and upload the documents above.
- You'll be shown a form called a W-8BEN and asked to agree to it — this is not extra paperwork you have to go and find later, it is part of the same application. It certifies to the US tax authority that you're not a US taxpayer, and it is what brings the tax withheld on any US dividends you earn down from the default 30% to 25%, under the India–US tax treaty. Read it; there's nothing to fill in beyond confirming your own details.
Signing up gives you a working paper account straight away — that part doesn't wait on approval at all. A separate, slower approval is needed only for live trading, and that's step V, much later in this page, for exactly that reason: no sense making you wait on a bank wire before you've even seen the dashboard.
app.alpaca.markets — and you get there from the button above, not
from a link in an email.Get your API credentials
About 5 minutesAlgorithmic access needs a developer key, same idea as Shoonya's. It's free.
Where your Alpaca dashboard ▸ API Keys panel
- Log in to your Alpaca dashboard.
- Find the API Keys section and choose Generate New Keys. Use your paper keys for now — there's a separate live pair later, once you've been approved and funded.
- Copy the Key ID and the Secret Key immediately. The secret is shown exactly once. If you lose it, generate a fresh pair — there is no way to view an old one again.
Why there's no IP lock here, unlike Shoonya
Shoonya ties a key to one server address; Alpaca doesn't offer that. The protection here works differently but comes to the same place: the secret is shown once and never again, and you can regenerate the pair at any moment from your own dashboard, which instantly kills the old one — no need to ask us, no waiting on anything.
It's also worth knowing what this key can and can't do. It grants access to the Trading API only — placing orders, reading your positions and account figures. It has no path to moving money in or out of your account; deposits and withdrawals only ever happen when you log into Alpaca's own site, with your own password. We could not empty your account through this key even if we wanted to — the door it opens doesn't lead anywhere near your bank.
The handover
The only step where anything passes between us.
Send us two things — and nothing else
2 minutesReply to your invitation, or add them from your dashboard once that control exists, with:
Key ID
From the API Keys page.
Secret Key
From the API Keys page — the one shown only once.
Do not send us these — we don't want them
- Your Alpaca password. Never. The key and secret above are the whole of what we need.
- Any 2FA / authenticator code. Not needed, and a code is only ever meant for you.
- Your bank or wire details. We never touch your money, in either currency.
If anyone — including someone claiming to be us — asks for your password or a 2FA code, refuse, and tell us.
There's no third step here the way there is with Shoonya's "authorise the desk" page — Alpaca has no equivalent handshake for a retail key. That isn't a gap: the safety property Shoonya's step buys you (you can cut us off without needing our help) is exactly what regenerating your key gives you here, just by a different mechanism.
On your dashboard
From here everything is a control you hold, and nothing moves without you pressing it — same as the rupee book.
Watch it in paper mode
As long as you likeOnce we have your paper keys, the dollar book appears on your dashboard as its own tab, running against a simulated Alpaca balance (usually around $100,000 — a number Alpaca hands every paper account, not a preview of anything you're about to fund). It's kept completely separate from your rupee figures: different currency, different broker, never added together anywhere on the page.
Stay in paper for as long as you like. There's no reason to rush into step V until you've seen how the sleeves behave.
When you're ready to fund it, and go live
This is the part that's genuinely different from Shoonya, because the money has to leave the country. Nothing below is unusual — it's the same route every Indian investor buying US stocks uses — but it does take longer than a domestic transfer, so it's worth reading before you start the clock.
Apply for live-trading approval
A few minutes to apply, then a few days of waitingYour paper account exists already; live trading needs a separate approval on top of it. Alpaca will re-check the same documents from step I and may ask a couple more questions — this is standard KYC depth for a live brokerage account, not something specific to your application.
Send the money — the LRS way
A form at your bank, then 2–5 business days for the wireAlpaca only accepts US dollars, so funding it is a foreign remittance — either a wire transfer from your Indian bank, or through Rapyd, a payment provider built into Alpaca's own Banking tab. Either way, your rupees are converted to dollars as part of the transfer.
A remittance like this is covered by the RBI's Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) — a standing facility, not an exception you have to argue for, that lets any Indian resident send up to $250,000 abroad per financial year (April to March) for permitted purposes, including buying foreign securities.
What your bank will ask for
- Form A2 — the standard outward-remittance declaration. Some banks let you file this from net banking; most want you at a branch, at least the first time.
- The purpose code:
S0001— "Indian investment abroad in equity capital." Getting this exact code onto the form is worth doing carefully; a wrong code is one of the more common reasons a bank's compliance desk sends a remittance back for correction, and it isn't the same as the codes used for other kinds of foreign transfer. - Your W-8BEN — already handled back in step I. Nothing further to file with your bank for this.
The tax your bank collects up front (TCS)
The first ₹10 lakh you remit for investment purposes in a financial year is free of any tax collection at source. Above that, your bank collects 20% TCS on the amount over ₹10 lakh, at the time of the transfer.
This is not money you lose — it's tax collected in advance, which shows up in your Form 26AS and is credited against your actual income-tax liability for the year, or refunded if it comes to more than you owe. Treat it as a prepayment, not a fee.
Once the bank sends the wire, allow 2–5 business days for it to land and show up as USD in your Alpaca account. Only then is there real money for the live sleeves to use — nothing arms itself before that.
Two risks, not one
What this book earns or loses has two parts: how the US stocks and ETFs move, and how the rupee moves against the dollar in between. A flat US market with a weakening rupee still shows a gain in ₹ terms on the day you'd convert back — and the reverse is just as true. This is exactly why the dollar book is reported in dollars on your dashboard, never folded into a rupee figure: the two currencies are genuinely different kinds of exposure, and adding them together would hide that.
It's also worth knowing what protects this account and what doesn't. Alpaca Securities LLC is a member of SIPC, which protects your securities and cash up to $500,000 (including up to $250,000 in cash) if the broker itself were to fail — the US equivalent of India's Investor Protection Fund. It does not protect you against the market simply going down, and it is separate from, and does not extend, any Indian scheme. Money in this account is protected the way a US brokerage account is protected, not the way your Shoonya account is.
Going live is your switch
Whenever you decide, and not beforeOnce you're approved and funded, you enable live trading on your own dashboard, the same way as the rupee book. This book's live switch is entirely separate from the rupee desk's — arming one never arms the other, and you can run either, both, or neither.
The same invariant applies here as on the rupee book: stopping never stops exit management. Pausing halts new entries only; anything already open keeps being managed.
Alerts to your phone
If you already set up email or Telegram alerts for the rupee book, they already cover this one too — nothing extra to configure. If you haven't, see the alerts section on the Shoonya guide; it's the same setup for both books.
If something goes wrong
- Live-trading application stuck or declined — Alpaca's own support is the right first stop; the documents in step I are the usual cause of a delay.
- The wire hasn't landed after a week — check with your bank first (an incorrect purpose code is the most common hold-up), then with Alpaca; cross-border wires occasionally sit at an intermediary bank along the way.
- Your key is rejected and nothing trades — almost always a stale or mistyped secret. Regenerate a fresh pair in step II and send it again; the old one is dead the moment you do.
- You want out, right now — regenerate your API key (which cuts us off immediately) and email us. See refunds & cancellation; we never sell your holdings on our own initiative, in either currency.
Stuck anywhere? Email and we'll walk you through it.