Digitalization has entered numerous spheres of our lives, and investment activities are not an exception to this rule. These days, the new type of technology-friendly investors is getting more widespread and influential.
According to Deloitte, we face the rise of newly empowered retail investors who make decisions based on real-time information and are acquainted with increasingly sophisticated investment tools.
Practically, it means that users are constantly searching for new apps that will make their investment activities easier to manage and more effective.
Once you’ve decided to create an app for investing, several problems arise. Since there are so many outstanding investment apps on the market these days, it seems hard to make excellent software in this sharp competition.
Moreover, you require knowledge to recognize the exact must-have functions your app should have. This guide will provide you with the answers.
We’ll describe the core functionality of an investment app and provide practical recommendations on how to establish an effective development process and make it work for your benefit.
What Is an Investment App?
In general, an investing app is software that assists in handling various investment-related activities. The investment app may include managing publicly traded financial information, getting professional recommendations, and handling assets.
The exact appearance of investing apps is different, depending on the exact investment task it solves. There are numerous budget trackers, stock trading platforms, or social media apps for finance-preoccupied communities on the market.
Moreover, mobile investment apps can range from fantasy stock games (like Invstr and Wealthbase) to real-life robo-advisors (like Wealthfront and Betterment).
Notwithstanding the exact appearance and set of functions, the main aim of mobile investment apps is to facilitate and make investment activities more understandable and affordable for the wide public.
For this, investment apps offer a set of tools and benefits that even a newbie can try and gain profit right away.
Basically, an investment app can serve as your online financial advisor, coach, and assistant. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it makes investing less risky — but the software is an awesome tool to make this activity easier to start and handle carefully.
Types of Investment Apps:
- Education-centered. This investing app type is designed to help beginners learn the basics of financial literacy.
- Executing trades. This type of investment app allows trading stocks and can invest money on your behalf.
- Brokerage apps. These platforms are designed for people who know what they want to buy. Normally, you can trade fiat currencies and crypto alike here.
- Banking applications. These various forms of online banking platforms enable managing banking accounts, making deposits, and executing transfers.
6 Main Features of High-Quality Investment Apps
Mostly, investing apps have different features, depending on the exact focus product developers have chosen. Nevertheless, there is a set of basic traits each good investing app should have. We’ll disclose them here.
Feature #1. Personal Account
An investment app requires a login procedure to reach a personal profile with a virtual private office. That’s why it’s essential to work on this step carefully. Make sure a personal account is as easy and intuitive as possible not to push off your clients from the very beginning of interacting with your app.
Feature #2. Digital Wallet
Basically, this is the place where the balance for future investments is stored. The main rule is extreme safety, along with easy accessibility for a person eligible to manage the assets stored there.
An investing app should support the connection with the bank and card network for timely updates and secure the data carefully on the phone. You can read more information on mobile wallets in this blog post.
Feature #3. Money Management Instruments
People don’t like simply having money. They want to invest their funds and make them work. Thus, your mobile app should satisfy these needs with various tools.
Depending on the exact appearance and your app development aims, you can include gamification elements, dynamically changing charts, credit management dashboards, tables comparing several investment opportunities, etc.
Feature #4. Chatbot
Instant access to support makes it comfortable for users to interact with an app of any type. Beginners can use this function as a platform to get expert advice. More experienced users can also benefit and fix the problems of using an app on the go. In general, the presence of a chatbot increases the trustworthiness of your trading app.
Feature #5. Security elements
Data protection is the must-have feature of any investing app. Consider adding powerful IDPS for handling DDoS attacks, encryption algorithms, two-factor authentication, anti-spam, and protection from phishing. The more protection tools you have added, the better for user experience.
Feature #6. Notifications
When it comes to investing, real-time alerts are a must-have feature. They allow users to track the performance and provide necessary adjustments timely. Frequently, the absence of timely notifications decreases the level of customer satisfaction with trading apps.
7 Tips to Develop an Excellent Investment App
Developing an investing app requires a careful attitude and taking into account numerous nuances. As a golden rule, it’s extremely important to find a reliable vendor and establish effective communication and constant dialogue with the development team. Get ready to understand the specifics of coding an investment app to be on the same page with your tech partner.
These 7 tips will provide the needed guidance for you.
Tip #1. Follow the Basic Implementation Plan for Development
As in any software development type, making an investment app requires proper preparation and execution. Make sure your tech partner is aware and capable of making a mobile app this way.
The basic development plan for making investment apps is the following:
- Planning. Dedicate enough time to think about and strategize on the app you’re about to make. At this stage, you should ask yourself questions connected with your corporate aims. Does your business really need an app? What are the concrete advantages and performance improvements expected? Is this the best way for your business development? Last but not least, determine your risk tolerance for different scenarios when something goes wrong.
- Picking a business model. After you’ve determined the business aims, it’s time for elaborating a business plan. Here, you should set the price for your services, determine the minimum amount needed to start, and calculate the commission your users will gain. It’s also recommended to do the market research and check your competitors on this step.
- Building the core app. Together with the software development partner you’ve hired, launch the app mapping. In simple terms, it means developing an MVP for your mobile app product. Here, it’s important to ensure the presence and valid work of various networks, gateways, and mechanisms behind an app for investing.
- Adding custom features. After you’ve reached the minimum number of features to make your mobile app work, you can add extra functionality. For example, you can invest in the next-layer security and introduce better UI/UX and gamification elements.
- Testing. Once you’ve completed the raw development stage, it’s necessary to invite QA specialists. They will detect problems and bugs that will bother your users and adjust an app to make its functionality more smooth and effective.
Of course, not each investment app development strictly follows this procedure — especially when it comes to customized investing apps.
Nevertheless, this plan can serve as a sustainable basis to ensure satisfactory development results. By relying on the Agile methodology, you can progress with the development processes steadily and instantly solve disputes appearing on the way.
Tip #2. Work Hard on Making an Effective Algorithm Under the Hood
Most successful investment apps use the functionality of robo-advisors or an algorithm that assists in managing your investments. The advantage of this function is self-evident: it’s pure magic for users to get easy-to-follow and effective recommendations for their investment strategy.
Once effective, this mechanism encourages people to use your app more and more. Besides, this algorithm can automatically place spare money to low-risk ETFs, make regular transfers, and implement an investment plan you’ve prescribed.
Tip #3. Ask for a Minimum Sum to Enter an App
All top-performing trading apps are easy to start due to the minimum payment needed to install and try them. Some say $50 is enough to start investing, while the platforms like SoFi Invest need only $1 from you.
Notwithstanding the willingness to offer the minimum price to attract as many users as possible, finding the right sum to optimize your budget is essential.
The main rule is to consider the key requirements you’ll need to cover, including maintenance, support, and platform-related expenses. In this blog post, you can get more information on mobile app architecture to calculate the costs. The overview is relevant for investing apps for Android and investing apps for iPhone.
Tip #4. Don’t Overwhelm Users with Complex Registration
There is a typical procedure for using investing apps. Thus, while developing your own software, make sure the installation plan follows these steps:
- Sign up (include an opportunity to use social media accounts for that),
- Link to your bank account (also, make it easy for users to fund it in your app),
- Pick an investment asset,
- Access tracking the performance of your shares (the notifications features is highly useful here),
- Trade assets.
Tip #5. Ensure the Highest Security Level Possible
The security of using an investment app is the basic concern for many users. Money is a highly sensitive topic, and your users are extremely careful because they share their essential financial information.
That’s why you should pay maximum attention to data privacy and the overall security of user experience while interacting with an app. Make sure your efforts are seen and easily recognized by your users.
The exact measures include (but are not limited to) providing SIPC insurance, data encryption, and various investor-related protections.
Tip #6. Apply APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) Accurately
For developing investment apps, you’ll inevitably need to use third-party APIs. They may take different appearances:
- Connecting a banking account
- Getting financial information
- Updating the market data feed
- Stock exchange
- Currency conversion
Here, it’s important to use reliable technologies only — for example, Plaid, Paybook, and Xignite.
Always check with your tech partner which technologies and tools they use to maintain the highest security and effectiveness.
Tip #7. Hire an Outsourcing Vendor
Make the most of your cooperation with the software development company on making investing apps by hiring the team on an outsourcing basis. For making SaaS products, this approach has several substantial advantages:
- Lower costs
- Quick set up
- Constant upgrades
- Easy access
- Scalability
To better understand the exact ways to benefit from outsourcing, read this blog post on outsourcing advantages. Moreover, you can learn more about effective collaboration with outsourcing vendors, the specific risks of software development outsourcing, and its fundamental pricing models from our recent publications.
All in all, hiring a reliable outsourcing software development partner ensures getting sustainable competitiveness in a technology-intensive market for an affordable price.
Contact Intellectsoft Developers for Building an Investing App
If you’re in search of an experienced and effective software development partner, we at Intellectsoft are eager to help! We have a vast portfolio of successful projects completed for companies of various sizes and working in different industries.
By referring to us, you can be sure: we’ll dedicate the maximum attention to your investment app and strengthen its functionality with the wide arsenal of top-performing tools and elements.
For more information, check our financial software development capabilities. If you need consultation or want to start the project with us, don’t hesitate to contact us directly and talk to our experts! Let us build an outstanding mobile investment app for your business benefit.
