Investment Platform Development: How We Do It

With technologies evolving, the building of an investment platform has moved to the area of websites and mobile apps. Statista notes that the share of people using online investments and internet banking in Great Britain in 2020 reached 76 percent compared with 30 percent in 2007. The rest of Europe and the United States demonstrate similar indicators.

Investment platforms that have been carried out on a website or app can make investments easy. The online environment saves the customer money by eliminating the middleman’s services, and investing comes down to several stages:

• The customer registers on the website or mobile app and fills in personal information;
• The potential investor defines his goals, and the service determines the appropriate asset classes and markets for the customer;
• The system guides the customer through a background check and risk assessment;
• When the investments are selected, the platform conducts user portfolio “health checks” and matches results with the set goals to give suggestions of what to do next.

Basic Features of an Investment Platform

The most popular platforms, such as Fidelity, E*Trade, TD Ameritrade, Robinhood, or Acorns, are united by similar functionality, which includes:

• Several types of accounts — admin, advisor, client, and others;
• Investment portfolios (as many as needed) available to the owner or advisor;
• Assets management that provides a filtered search to compare, select, and review funds;
• Admin panel for advisors to communicate with customers and manage functions;
• Investment placement on a ring-fenced custodian account;
• Data security with advanced encryption algorithms and authentication servers; and
• Technical, trade, and administrative support available on request instantly.

Creation of an Online Investment Platform

Before building an online investment platform, ensure the business’s legal and financial “purity” and turn to a team with experience developing fintech solutions. This sphere requires a deep understanding of the technical implementation complexities. With the help of the software development company, you save time and money, and avoid errors.

The first phase is research. To figure out the business requirements and the system’s concept, leading competitors, and functions formulation, you will need professional business analysis and technical expertise.

Next, you need to identify unique features and create the architecture. Take into account the crucial factors:

• Platform type and the system’s audience (B2B, B2C);
• Tools for advisors on the admin panel;
• Bank integration — the architecture depends on banks’ numbers and data (e.g., user’s credit score, reliability);
• Time zones — the customer makes decisions based on information provided during different working hours, and this has to be reflected in the architecture;
• Access for all customers — speaking different languages, deaf or hard of hearing, etc.

While figuring out the UI/UX design, remember that financial information displays on the screen as bulky lists of statistics and summaries. To translate it into the web/mobile view, we define tables type, fix the rules for data unification to make the presentation uniform, and think over filters and sorting, custom visual elements, users’ guides, pop-up hints and notifications, etc. We never forget to balance between giving enough information and overloading the interface.

The platform’s development

Every software development process goes through several stages: prototyping, MVP, product improvement, and release. An MVP with the necessary minimum features allows you to find out what users want and gather useful feedback. It’s important to provide:

• Tools to avoid fraud — artificial intelligence and machine learning-based detection systems do it well;
• Cloud solutions that provide flexible integration, secure storage of customer data, and operations processing in real-time;
• Integration with third parties that ensure complete QA coverage and accessible providers adding.

After developing the MVP, you can analyze future steps, depending on the project, budget, or client’s reaction. Ensure that the customers’ actions to get results are precise, and all the possibilities have been covered.

A qualified QA services team covers the entire product lifecycle with advanced testing. Experts use various manual and automated tools for defect tracking, test case management, costs, and time reduction. When an investment platform is released, it is necessary to add new features regularly. Your platform’s website or app should support the latest OS versions and function correctly across devices.

According to the Outsystems Survey, the development timeline varies from six months to nine months or more for a complex project, such as an investment platform. Website or application total prices may vary from US$20,000 to US$200,000.

Conclusion

An investment platform is a large-scale system that requires a deep understanding of the internal processes and user needs for successful development. However, if you do everything right, you’ll receive a tool for generating meaningful income for you and your customers. We at CHI Software will help you with professional investment platform development, and your product will remain relevant and in high demand for a long time.

If you have found this overview interesting, read the full article here.