As software outsourcing in Asia skyrockets due to its highly affordable and innovative nature, businesses across every industry and size are more and more confident about trusting offshore services to fulfil their technology needs. Stock trading software development is no exception, as fintech businesses both large and small are turning to technology agencies around the world to build products that their customers will find valuable.
Add to this the fact that custom trading software development is now easier and accessible than ever before, thanks to cloud support services. With affordable options such as an AWS savings plan, businesses and their agencies alike are able to reduce costs as they maintain their trading software at scale and on a long-term basis, over the cloud.
At EFutures, we understand the fierce competition that dominates today’s business landscape. As numerous brands line up to present the same set of offerings through their product, customers are spoilt for choice amidst all these options. As social newsfeeds further get inundated with ads and page content about various brands and their products, customer attention spans dwindle.
With the vast majority of customers now online over social networks, attracting their attention amidst so much noise is a near-impossible challenge for many businesses, especially small ones. With a range of product options that are almost limitless, it’s not surprising to see customer abandonment, as many feel that better options could be available elsewhere.
numerous businesses compete for the same customer’s attention, it is imperative to have a digital presence that is not only easy to use, but goes above and beyond customer expectations to provide value. Therefore, building the right application is key. With fintech startups proliferating the market today, the best trading software can distinguish worthy companies from the rest – and even make all the difference between a successful business model, and a failed one.
Trading software refers to any application where an investment option can be bought and sold online. Investment options include (but aren’t limited to) stocks, bonds, currencies, bullions, commodities and even combined portfolios such as mutual funds. With online trading, traders have the option to control the amount of risk they wish to take, by activating features such as ‘stop loss’ and ‘take profit’. Both capabilities close deals the moment a certain loss or profit threshold is reached, so that traders can ensure they only deal with what is within their means, no matter how turbulent the market may get.
The popularity of trading platforms are not only attributed to their easy accessibility over the web, but also to eliminating broker fees. As traders independently open and close deals depending on market trends, the need for a broker to coordinate with buying and selling is now absent. Forums also foster a sense of community, thereby encouraging traders to share tips and recommendations with others on deal performance and news updates.
Opening and closing deals is the crux of trading software, without a doubt. Having the option to buy and sell investment options at a click enables traders to easily and quickly build their trading portfolio. Additionally, options such as leverage, stop loss and take profit further empower traders to maximise their profits, while limiting any losses based on how much risk they can afford.
With a trading website or mobile app, traders can search for any investment option of their choice, and monitor its present and past performance with charts, graphs and a variety of other data visualisations. However, traders can also take advantage of monitoring any stocks, currencies or commodities they are interested to follow, by turning on alerts for any price changes. This way, traders are immediately notified of changes even if they are offline, via emails or push notifications.
An online trading platform can also be a source of finance news, market trends and other updates, as they happen. Similar to a social newsfeed, traders can follow media accounts, investment options and even other traders to stay on top of trading updates that interest them – while also sharing their own updates and insights with the rest of the community. This way, traders don’t need to leave your trading app to obtain the insights they need to aid their decision making, thereby making it a complete source for all things pertaining to their training requirements.
Technical analysis forms a crucial part of any trader’s repertoire. This is especially the case for long-term, advanced traders who depend on a variety of data analysis techniques to monitor the performance of a certain investment option, or their current portfolio. From pie charts to candle graphs, trading platforms that offer comprehensive reporting and analytics features distinguish those from the rest, as traders don’t need to depend on a third-party application for data-driven insights. To further enhance the quality of such insights, integrating AI to the reporting and analytics module of trading platforms can offer traders the ability to forecast trends, and therefore hedge their portfolios accordingly for maximum profit.
By offering demo accounts in online trading software, beginner traders (including those who have never traded before) can be given a platform to learn and test the application out, risk-free. In fact, demo accounts in online trading platforms are another key factor that have positively influenced its massive adoption, as trading opportunities are opened to complete newcomers – unlike its offline counterpart. Demo accounts consist of all the features that a live account has, but with a virtual fund that can be used to open and close deals based on prevailing market trends.
Integrating real-time investment prices and other news into your trading software is what will enable it to function correctly, so traders can always open and close deals with the latest pricing. However, businesses need to ensure that the source of this data is reliable, and is able to function with minimal downtime as much as possible.
As AI continues to rapidly proliferate across the digital space, your trading software can also take advantage of the same by building an intelligent chatbot that can attend to common user inquiries. In turn, this will free your customer service staff to offer greater attention to inquiries of a more complex nature, so that your users precisely get the help they need without delay, and your trading software improves on its quality of customer service.
With cyberattacks running rampant across digital platforms today, your trading software isn’t immune to compromise. Dealing with all forms of financial data (including the confidential financial data of your users) trading applications face a greater risk when it comes to cybersecurity. Therefore, it is important for fintech businesses to ensure relevant cyberattack incident remediation systems are in place, together with round-the-clock threat hunting that detects abnormal activities before they have a chance to cause any damage.
User identity management is another crucial cybersecurity component; by implementing features such as Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Role Based Access Control (RBAC) and session management, only authorised access can be granted to accounts, thereby protecting the data and privacy of all your users.
With large amounts of data being exchanged with your trading software on a daily basis, it is subject to equally great scrutiny from regulatory authorities. Therefore, establishing relevant compliance management systems in place that can audit logs and manage risk can ensure your software stays compliant with all the regulations that it needs to adhere to, be they state, federal or international.
The rise in popularity being experienced by trading software is due to several key reasons such as ease of use, accessibility, the elimination of broker fees and the ability to control risks. As fintech companies mushroom around the globe and rise up to the competition, trading stocks, bonds or mutual funds online is now something which most traders are getting accustomed to, in order to manage their portfolios anytime and from anywhere.
Unlike offline trading, online trading offers traders more than just the option to buy and sell. From real-time market updates to online communities, traders can take advantage of insights from across the board to make the most lucrative trading decisions. With the benefits of trading software motivating many traders to buy and sell online, it also heightens the pressure faced by fintech businesses offering such platforms; strong competition from other providers means building nothing short of the best presence, so traders always choose your platform over the rest.
As a result, trading software development is highly important for fintech businesses that offer trading solutions to their users. By taking core features (such as trade buying and selling), social features (such as online communities), compliance and cybersecurity into consideration, fintech companies need to have the right systems in place to build, implement and maintain their trading website and/or mobile app.