Posts tagged Mobile Trading
In Pursuit of SaaS-iness
Jul 28th
A lot has been written and debated about the merits and demerits of a SaaS based engagement of an IT vendor across various industries. Specific to Mobility solutions in the finance and brokerage industry here is something that we felt obliged to put forth.
Picture this:
-There are more than 6 leading Mobile Operating systems.
- Around 2400 form factors.
- Each Mobile OS has multiple versions and newer ones are being introduced regularly.
Fragmentation is here to stay – Differentiation being the key reason.
At this point in time it would suffice to point out the obvious – the mobile market is constantly evolving at break neck speed. It is one of the fastest growing markets and mobile companies are leaving no stone unturned to differentiate themselves and garner as much share of this seemingly ceiling free market. The advent of applications has markedly changed the game in this space. Phones are no longer being bought for ‘calls’ and ‘messaging’, rather for the exciting and limitless possibilities that applications provide to a user at the palm of his / her hand, on the go.
Having said this, now let’s explore what companies may be thinking.
It is indeed in this kind of a dynamic and exciting market place, the true benefits of a SaaS model surfaces to the fore. Today, to develop a comprehensive mobile trading or a mobile banking application, companies are considering shelling out anywhere between a $ 100K to Half a Million! This, just to create on one device. Presuming that the world economy was back on its feet and booming , companies are able to afford this kind of a spend, almost sure of recovering the costs in no time. Still does it make any sense at all? They then spend additional amounts for upgrades, maintenance, newer devices etc. Why?
To borrow from a cliché – Change is the only thing permanent – hence SaaS. Companies operating on this model have managed to disrupt existing business practices and emerged as forward thinking partners of choice.
With these known facts it is not surprising to witness more companies opening up to the idea of engaging an IT partner that operates on a SaaS model.
Consider the following benefits:
- Zero capital Expenditure.
- Pay only for what you use.
- The very DNA of the model allows for it to be the fastest time to market.
- Most agile in adapting to changes.
- With the inclusion of a Cloud Compute package, negligible server infrastructure cost.
- No more mundane ‘change management’ strategies or black-out periods.
- Adapt on the move, running.
- Greater involvement, engagement and commitment of the vendor / partner.
- Least amount of interference with company’s IT functioning. Core competency gains greater mind-space.
- Scale up and down on demand – based on traffic and content
- Save cost on running minimum number of servers during non-traffic hours.
Being improperly forward or bold is what the dictionary describes as being Sassy. Maybe it’s time.
New Segment of “Mobile Traders” in the Making
Mar 23rd
“Day traders” were born during the frenetic Internet boom of the late 1990s when brokerages brought the stock market into every Internet-equipped home and office through online trading services. Today another entirely new segment is emerging silently, that of gen-y “Mobile Traders” – they’re young, they’re empowered, they enjoy actively managing their investments and mobile phones are their most popular choice of access. According to the Economist, there are over 4 Billion mobile phone users worldwide.
Just as, at the helm of the Internet boom, brokerages like Etrade, OptionsXpress built their billion dollar business by offering only online trading, by 2011 we could witness the emergence of brokerages that record the same volume of trades as the above online brokerages purely through mobile trading.
Interestingly, a survey from Scottrade found that “the idea of investing being fun is increasingly gaining traction within the generation – 35 percent of Gen Y invests because they find it enjoyable, up from 27 percent last year”. It further found that Gen Y investors (born 1983-1991, ages 18-26) are increasingly involved in the market and are changing perceptions of investing and that young investors are the most likely to manage their own investments and to describe investing as “fun and interesting“.
Another survey from Accelerant Research quoted “Gen Y demographic hooked on mobile bill pay and banking, proving that Baby Boomers have truly slipped into the unhip generation they thought they’d never be”.
The above surveys point to the rise of this new segment of “mobile traders” – mostly comprised of Gen Y – many of whom have discovered the stock markets from their mobile phones. This has become especially possible with the availability of a particularly user friendly mobile trading application such as what MarketSimplified offers.
In fact user friendly mobile trading platforms can increase trades originating from mobile devices. The following quote published in Barrons 2010 brokerage review reflects this phenomenon ...”…the mobile application, OX Mobile, is well designed, with streaming real-time data, charts, and watch lists, and stock, options, and futures trading. CEO David Fisher says, “We found that customers are doing significantly more trading through these phone-based apps than we thought possible.”
Clearly, for brokerages, More >
With Mobile Trading MarketSimplified Triples Revenue and Customers in 2009
Feb 8th
World’s #1 mobile trading platform provider tripled revenue, tripled customer count, announced new signed clients and extended trading coverage for Palm Pre & Android
Chicago, IL. – February 08, 2010 – MarketSimplified, Inc., a provider of cloud hosted SaaS mobile trading solutions designed for brokerages and financial institutions, today announced that the company experienced record growth in 2009, including tripling revenues and direct customers over the course of the year with major equities, forex and futures brokerages worldwide now using MarketSimplified Cloud Hosted SaaS Mobile Trading solution. MarketSimplified also expanded device coverage to Palm Pre & Google Nexus One(Android Phone) trading applications that works across multiple wireless devices.
For the latest information follow MarketSimplified on the Web at:
* Essential MarketSimplified Brief(pdf)
* MarketSimplified Blog(this)
* MarketSimplified on Twitter
* MarketSimplified on Facebook
About MarketSimplified
MarketSimplified is best known in the U.S Brokerage Industry for its 6 week Cloud Hosted SaaS Mobile Middleware solution that offers one simple zero cost SaaS model and eradicates the need to deal with More >
Out With the Old, In With the New
Jan 8th
MarketSimplified’s Mobility Platform Generation -2 is almost out of our workbench and is raving to go live. With this evolution of the platform it brings :
- High Performance
- Streamlined Messaging
- Improved efficiency(less CPU per trade)
- Automated Scaling Groups via our renowned SaaS Model
- Overall it kicks Platform Gen-1’s butt
delivering significant performance boost to our customers and end-users
The Next Generation Platform is queued to go live on this sunday Jan 10th 2010, some disruptions can be seen on this sunday night due to upgrades with users on monday onwards should see significant improvements in speeds with their experience of MarketSimplified Apps.
Does your favorite broker not offer mobile trading ? – Specially when it’s Free!
Why not ask your broker via customer support to make use of Market Simplified’s renowned free-SaaS mobile trading platform that supports every smartphone on planet earth(Not just Blackberry or iPhone, but Windows, Android, Palm & Symbian), thus giving you the open path More >
Perils of Developing In-house Mobile Trading Apps for US Brokerages
Jan 7th
Major tech analyst firm today announced via press release, US retail brokerages are better off investing in online channels than on mobile apps which can not justify the return on investment, as among other things power features such as technical analysis is not available, here is the snippet :
“…The issue is not just whether these activities can be done via the mobile channel, but whether enough readers and trades will shift to the mobile channel to justify the investment….Mr. Schehr explained that the fit between active traders’ needs and the value of mobile trading is limited as the hardware form factor of smartphones makes technical analysis difficult, and other alternatives for rule-based trading diffuse much of the need for mobile access…”
We agree, wholeheartedly, More >
2010/MarketSimplified Largest Brokerage Mobility Provider in US
Jan 4th
Place a Trade on the new Nexus One
Kicking off 2010 in style MarketSimplified this year is on its way to be :
- Industry leader to take brokerages mobile : Powers top 5 of 10 Brokers of Barrons list.
- Any Device, Forever Coverage : Blackberry, iPhone, Android, Palm Pre, Windows, Symbian and even trade on the latest Google Phone Nexus One
- Zero or minimal cost; Requires no budget; SaaS solution with pay for performance billing
- Typical Solution Delivery Time of 6 weeks
- Our customers speak for us – TD Ameritrade, OptionsXpress, FXCM
If you haven’t tried MarketSimplified on your phone More >