While professional traders use online trading as a source of their living, millions of retail investors use it as extra income. Altogether, they shape an immense pool of trading platform users. Why do so many people go online training? It’s easy to access, can be performed with small deposits, and offers so many financial instruments on so many different markets anyone can find the one that resonates with their interests.
Such a degree of audience engagement in online trading brings new FinTech startups to the trading industry. If you are considering launching your trading platform application, read this article to find out how you can benefit from partnering with an external tech vendor and how to choose the reliable one.
Table of Contents
What is trading platform and how it works?
A trading platform is a software that provides traders access to international stock exchanges and financial markets. The trading platform allows traders to execute buy and sell orders with securities and to manage financial assets at stock exchanges.
The software can be utilized through the following platforms:
- Mobile
- Desktop
- Web
- Cross-platform
Online trading popularity has been growing among both professional and retail traders as it allows them to operate on global financial markets from anywhere in the world. Users need just an internet-connected device and a trading application.
Such popularity encourages startups to think of building their own trading platforms. However, the competition in this FinTech niche is fierce, so creating a competitive product is challenging. There are two options to address the challenge. You can try to launch your trading platform on your own or delegate the project to an experienced outsourcing software company. We are advocating for the outsourcing approach, and you can find out why in the next block.
Why you need a trading application development company
The answer is that a trading platform software development company helps you dramatically reduce time to market and overall costs for development and improve the quality of your product. An external tech vendor covers a wide scope of work. To build your own trading platform software, you have to:
- Setup your project
- Define features to include
- Plan the project’s budget
- Consider security aspects
- Select a tech stack
- Choose your monetization strategy
- Elaborate on marketing strategy
- Hire your development team
So launching your FinTech product is not only about technical aspects. It’s about business development and management as well. And delegating trading platform software development to an outsourcing company allows you to focus on your business tasks. While your product is built by an external tech vendor team, you can work on luring potential partners, brand ambassadors, and demand generation strategy.
Trading platform software development requires deep expertise in diverse technologies, both front-end, and back-end, as well as experience working with microservice architecture. These are one of the core reasons to hire an outsourcing development company.
Must-have features of trading platform apps
There is a set of mandatory features that any trading platform application must include. Here is a list of features that will help an application win over users.
Login (authentication)
Personal data protection and data security are the top priorities for users today. Especially when it comes to financial data. To win users’ trust, provide them with multi-factor authentication for granted and biometric verification (e.g., face ID) as an extra security remedy.
Searchbar and filters
This feature helps users find necessary stocks quickly and filter them by such criteria as volatility, types, prices, etc.
Newsfeed
To make informed trading decisions, traders need all the essential news at their fingertips. The newsfeed feature is about tackling this task. Provide users with valuable information to help them forecast market movements.
Analytics
Hit or miss trading is the road to zero bottom line. To maximize winning chances and create a robust trading strategy, traders must analyze markets. Ensure your application provides users with historical and real-time data, charts, stock indices, and other crucial information.
Watchlist
This is where users can see real-time stock prices, their fluctuation, and the hottest asset pairs. It allows users to see the current picture of markets at a glance.
Limit order
A limit order allows platform users to set a specific price for the execution of buy and sell orders. Market makers enter the amount they want to buy or sell an asset, and once the price on the market meets that value, the trading platform automatically executes the order.
Favorites
Once users meet an asset they’d like to work with permanently, they can save it to a specific folder. This ensures quick access to a desirable asset when needed.
Push notifications
The speed of a reaction to market fluctuations defines eventual profit. One of the most convenient ways for users to receive configured alerts about market movements and breaking news is push notifications.
User tips and guides
If you are a FinTech startup, retail traders and newcomers to trading will take a fair share of your targeted audience. Help them to start trading efficiently right off the bat. Prepare educational materials, guidelines, a glossary, and video tutorials on trading and how your application works.
How to choose a tech vendor
Building a trading platform is a very sophisticated process. It requires deep expertise in complex technologies, and to make sure you are going to partner with a reliable outsourcing software development company, check out their portfolios on FinTech products. Look through clients’ testimonials, case studies, and their rates on independent sources like Upwork, GoodFirms, and Clutch.
See if their tech stack meets your requirements. Note that a comprehensive tech provider can suggest you even better and optimal tech stack for your project than you designed. So it’s a good idea to book a call with a potential development company and clarify all aspects of your trading platform application.
Take your time to consider several potential providers. Depending on the region, hourly rates for services may differ significantly. Typically, the lower rate will translate into poor product quality. However, outsourcing software development companies from CEE have proven they can deliver high-quality products at affordable prices.
Final thoughts
Building your own trading platform application is a challenge. It takes a lot of steps to do. While some steps are about dealing with the technical side of a product, the other ones are related to marketing and business development matters. FinTech startups can optimize their product development process by delegating the technical part of a project to a reliable external tech provider. The key to success here is to select your vendor carefully.