Are you racking your brains to find the perfect solution for your new and young investors? Do you want to solve issues like complex trading platforms, long processing times, and a lack of financial knowledge for trading? Do you need an app like Robinhood?
Because of its mobile-first approach and zero-commission fee strategy, Robinhood is a popular investment app that hundreds of thousands of investors prefer. It allows users to trade and manage their investments on the go and offers a range of investment options. The app has generated billions of revenue in the last two years and has covered around 23 mn investors.
Do you want to know how to build an app like Robinhood? As a reputed fintech app development company for several years, we have acquired vast experience creating robust fintech apps for our clients. After rigorous research and seeking help from our expert fintech app developers, we have some concrete information about the best way to build a trading app like Robinhood.
So, let us understand the process.
How do you develop a trading app like Robinhood?
In the final quarter of 2023, Robinhood contributed 471 million US dollars of total net revenue. After Robinhood and the launch of similar trading apps, investors had a handful of choices for trading and investment purposes. Each year, the demand for customized trading platforms is multiplying. To create a highly competitive trading platform for the current generation of investors, a complex yet seamless development process is needed. Well-established financial institutions and startups are vying for a significant market share in this area.
They are hiring experienced software development companies to create tailored fintech apps that can provide a robust trading platform for quick and hassle-free investments. We have divided the process of developing an app like Robinhood into six easy steps.
Define the Scope of Your Trading App
Find out the key objectives and goals behind creating your application. For that, you need to identify your target audience and their expectations. List all kinds of expectations. Also, list what your requirements will be. After analyzing all these points, organize your thought process and find out how to provide a solution through your mobile application. While you are skimming through the market to find your right target audience, you must consider answering the questions below to find solutions.
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What kind of services will you provide with your mobile application?
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What will be the top features that you will provide to your users?
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What are the fundamental problems that you will address?
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Will you provide discounts and referral coupons?
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Are you planning to scale your stock trading app in the future?
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What level of security will you provide to the users regarding information?
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What will be your budget, and when will you launch your app?
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What will be the core technical requirements?
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Who will be your competitor?
Answering all the above questions will help you determine the scope of your application and provide you with a well-defined framework for building it. After establishing the scope of your trading app, it is time to decide on the mobile application platform.
Finalize the Mobile App Platform
To build a successful trading mobile application, you must ensure an intuitive and smooth UI and a robust operating system. Also, you must decide what type of mobile app development platform you want your app to be. Generally, there are three types of platforms:
Provides Real-Time Data
They use a specific programming language and are built for any one operating system. A mobile application can be built for iOS or Android. A native mobile app cannot function on both operating systems with a single codebase.
Hybrid mobile app development
They are developed with a single code base and can run on both platforms, such as iOS and Android. You need not develop separate apps for separate platforms, such as apps like MarketWatch and NerdWallet.
Progressive web apps
Progressive web apps are developed using technologies like CSS, JavaScript, and HTML. They are highly scalable and reliable for mobile devices. Such apps can be found on iOS, Android, and web browsers. Some examples are UBank and Coinbase.
To be precise, cross-platform app development is preferred for building a stock trading app as it enhances app compatibility on other platforms. You can hire flutter app developers to build dynamic cross-platform trading apps for multiple platforms. However, while finalizing the mobile app development platform, you must always consider the software development team’s geolocation, e-trading app development time, and app complexity.
Choose the Best Fintech App Development Company
Drawing a basic outline of your stock trading app is the crucial step, followed by finding a reliable fintech app development company. Such companies have immense technical expertise in developing mobile applications. When you hire mobile app developers. from a reputed mobile app development company, you will get feature-rich and interactive stock trading applications.
The question is, how will you choose the best mobile app development company?
Well, you can seek answers from the following observations:
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Is the company found on reputed platforms like GoodFirms and Clutch?
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Does the company have experience developing fintech applications?
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Did you look through their work portfolio?
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What is the app development process of these companies?
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Do they practice a specific set of coding standards?
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What is their communication process for the clients?
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Do they have solid and concrete client testimonials?
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What is the pricing model of these app development companies?
After researching the above points, you can find the right fintech app development company. To create a stock trading app like Robinhood, you must clearly state your requirements to the company. Accordingly, you can hire developers to build a customized trading app for your business.
Finalize Design and Development Process
Create a comprehensive project for the development process that includes elements like wireframes, prototypes, the app’s UI/UX, front-end and back-end technologies, and the best tech stack you will use to develop your trading app, like Robinhood. The technology stack will include frameworks, programming languages, third-party APIs, and libraries. In addition, you can enhance your app functionalities by integrating modern technologies. Nowadays, technologies like blockchain and AI in fintech are picking up rapidly. Based on the feedback, make necessary iterations and apply compliances before sending it to the quality testing team.
Fulfill the Regulatory Compliances Regarding Finance
To create a trading application, you must comply with the financial authorities’ rules and regulations. This is important because users make serious financial decisions on your mobile application. In addition, your mobile app deals with stock trading in real time. So, ensure you follow the national and international guidelines of various government financial institutes. These financial authorities ensure your customers are protected through laws, and any fraud applicants are barred from trading. Some known financial services guidelines are CFTC, BSA, NFA, and FINRA (Finance Industry Regulatory Authority). In addition, being a stock trading company, you must adhere to the anti-money laundering mobile app rules and ensure it is entirely safe and secure for your end-users.
Test and Launch your Trading App
Once your stock trading app is developed, you must send it to the quality control team for further quality assurance. They conduct testing to ensure your app is bug-free and fully functional. You must test your mobile app using logic, functionality, and design parameters. Fintech developers can apply multiple testing methods, such as performance, security, usability, memory leak, etc. After testing, your mobile app is ready to upload to the app stores.
What are the Top Features You Must Have in Your Trading App Like Robinhood?
Some of the most common features that you must integrate into your trading app, like Robinhood, are listed below:
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User Registration
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User portfolio
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Search and sorting option
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Stock quotes
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In-ap learning
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Verification of investor
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Market data collect
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Watchlist
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Selling and buying functions
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User dashboard
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Payment integration
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Real-time charts
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Two-factor authentication
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Push notifications
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Money deposits
Apart from the above basic features, you must ensure your trading app offers something unique and valuable. Integrating the advanced features below will help you attract more users to trade in the market using your mobile app.
| Advanced Feature | Description |
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Robo Advisor |
With mathematical calculations, you can provide financial investment advice to your users based on their previous investments |
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Predictive Analysis |
With AI in Fintech, you can now provide this feature. Based on the available data, the app makes future predictions by analyzing historical data. |
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Add to Watchlist |
Allows users to add favorite stocks to their watchlist so that they can keep an eye on them, reducing efforts to revisit the stock and check the market value |
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Custom Alerts |
Sending important push notifications on the stocks, earning, events, price ups and downs, and stock growth. |
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Buy and Sell Crypto |
You will allow users to make real-time trades of cryptocurrencies. |
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ETF Screener Tool |
Users get access to filter and find ETFs based on specific criteria from their available ETFs in the market. |
What is the Cost of Creating a Trading App Like Robinhood?
So many factors influence the cost of developing fintech apps like Robinhood. Some of them are the location of the cross-platform app development company, app design, features, API integration, app complexity, chosen tech stack, and mobile app platform. With the increasing complexity of stock trading apps, the cost of developing such an app will be higher. In addition, you must also clarify whether you need an Android version, an iOS version, or just an admin panel with API integration.
The cost of building a trading app like Robinhood will range between $50000 to $100000.
Conclusion
The blog provides extensive information about the importance and benefits of developing a trading app like Robinhood. Moreover, creating such apps can provide numerous monetization benefits to your business, like commission fees, premium features, and selling data to third parties. So, if you need a reliable software development company like Whitelotus Corporation, you can get in touch with our experts. We have more than ten years of fintech app development experience. From simple to complex project requirements, you can trust us.
Hire Flutter app development services from Whitelotus Corporation. We specialize in fintech app development solutions and are a leading mobile app development company delivering robust mobile and web applications. You can hire dedicated developers from Whitelotus Corporation to build small—and large-scale logistics applications. We know how to harness the tools and functionalities of various technologies to create the best solutions that will meet your expectations.
