The trend of trading platform development in the financial sector results from two factors: the growth rate of the online trading market and the interest of tech-savvy young generations in mobile trading solutions. According to reports, the global online trading market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 6.4% and reach a value of 13.3 billion USD by 2026. In such a promising context, the development of a stock trading app will be one of the choices that offer high-profit potential. In the article below, let’s look at the steps to build the stock trading app and other necessary information related to this process.

What is Trading Platform Development?

In the context of exponentially growing financial technology, the trading platform, trading software, and trading app are some kind of digital hub where traders, investors, and financial intermediaries can sell, buy, and exchange stocks, bonds, commodities, currency pairs, and various other derivatives. Currently, some popular types of trading platforms are:

• – Online brokerage platforms: Those that enable brokerage firms to provide online portals for retail investors to access financial markets.
• – Peer-to-peer trading platforms: This enables users to trade with one another directly, bypassing intermediaries.
• – Direct trading platforms: These are designed for traders requiring fast transactions.

Trading platform development refers to the process of conceptualizing, designing, fully developing, testing, and deploying such systems. Typically, developing a trading platform can take anywhere from one month to several months, depending on the platform’s size, the scope of work, and the budget. During this process, all predefined features are designed and continuously updated to bring maximum benefits to traders.

To build a stock trading app, a developer needs to understand how to build a platform that will fully meet the needs of every business. They also need to know how modules are connected and what is required to ensure optimum security for users’ assets and sensitive financial information.

Key Features of Trading Platform Software 

The trading platform development should start by defining the features to be included in your platform or software. The features have to be determined in the context of your understanding of the market, user needs, and challenges that users face with existing trading solutions. Choosing the features you want to include on the trading platform is an essential part of stock trading app development, as it defines your competitive advantage. Following are some key features that we think should not be missing in any trading apps:

No.	Features	Descriptions
1	User Registration	Registration should be simple, as users might leave the app immediately if the initial sign-up process is too complicated. You can design minimalistic forms for registration or login. You also need to add the ability to sign up with email, phone, or social media accounts.
2	User profile	A section to store all personal information, such as trading history and statistics of trading activities.
3	Dashboard	The user dashboard should display the following information by default: account overview, market data, asset watchlist, and performance metrics. It is important that this should refresh in real-time, along with the provision for customizing it according to a user’s preference.
4	Multiple payment gateways	Offer users various options for depositing and withdrawing funds to enhance convenience.
5	Security	Security is a key feature that has to be borne in mind during trading software development. Examples of such security tools, which one needs to embed in one’s product, are multi-factor authentication, end-to-end encryption, unusual activity alerts, etc. Such systems provide users with the feeling that their private and financial transaction details are guarded from unauthorized people.
6	Filtering and search tools	Provide traders with the ability to filter information in real-time and quickly search for indicators.
7	24/7 alerts	Inform users about all the newest updates or some security issues. Alerts should be adjustable.
8	Community	Provide community by connecting traders for them to share trading ideas and learn from each other. Community features you may implement are: social networking, forums, discussions, direct messaging, and leaderboards.
9	Real-time information access	Give timely and accurate access to financial market information, articles, news, quotes, and other data that might affect trading decisions.

How to Build a Trading App?

Now, let’s have a closer look at the detailed process of trading platform development. This process can be independently performed or outsourced to companies that specialize in algorithmic trading software development to assist you.

Step 1 – Market research and goal definition

In case the ideas and details of your stock trading software development are not crystal clear yet and require thorough consideration, this first step will play a very important role in shaping the course of your project. You will have to study the market landscape in this stage, understand user needs, and analyze similar platforms and software to understand what features are strong and weak. This would help you find the pain points that users are going through and identify unique features for differentiating your application in the market.

Additionally, during this phase, you need to gain some idea about the legalities related to algo trading software development since the financial industry is one of the most regulated sectors. Regulations and their legal procedures also differ a lot between regions, so thorough research will be required to avoid any problems in the future.

If you choose to collaborate with a provider of custom trading platform development services, such as Luvina, this phase will start with the analysis of your business needs, market context, and associated risks. Conjointly, the company will offer recommendations on what software functionality will be required to meet those business needs. In addition, they will suggest relevant technology stacks and develop a preliminary UX design plan for your platform.

Step 2 – Planning the development of an MVP

For trading platform development, experts recommend starting with the development of an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). An MVP includes all the essential features you want in your trading software. Launching an MVP early helps accelerate the development process and ensures the product can meet market demands immediately.

During this second step, based on the information you researched and defined in Step 1, you can perform the following tasks:

• – Choose the type of trading application: There are three types of trading applications to consider for your custom trading software development: mobile trading apps, desktop applications, or web browser platforms.
• – Define user roles (administrator or trader): It is essential to identify user roles before starting automated trading software development.
• – Determine functionalities: Before embarking on electronic trading platform development, the number of features is not restricted. You can integrate any feature to streamline online trading on your platform or software. If you are unsure about which features to include, refer to the list we discussed earlier in this article.

Step 3 – UX/UI design

UX/UI design plays a crucial role in achieving business goals through trading platform development. This is why a thorough analysis of business requirements is essential before diving into the design process.

When designing UX/UI, ensure consistency across the entire online trading platform. Designers should pay attention to choosing a color palette, setting design standards, and establishing the company logo. These efforts not only ensure consistency throughout the development process but also help build a strong brand image in the eyes of users.

If you’re not confident or fully familiar with the UX/UI design process for trading software, consider creating multiple mockups and selecting the one that best fits your needs.

Step 4 – Selecting the technology stack and API integration

Selection of the technology stack to be used for trading platform development should be done by keeping in mind the demands of your project. The choice of a stack will thus be made by the developers based on the needs analyzed for the project. To identify the most suitable technology stack, it is necessary to share all the information developed in Step 1 and Step 2 with the developers. In this way, they can analyze leading programming languages compatible with financial applications and choose the optimal one for your project.

For example, if you build a mobile trading app, appropriate technologies can be Swift, Kotlin, or Xamarin. Regarding cross-platform applications, a good option would be the Flutter or React Native framework.

Since the trading platform and software have a host of advanced features, API integrations become vital. Popular APIs for electronic trading platform development include Yahoo Finance API, Finage API,…

Furthermore, security measures of databases should be developed for protection against leaks of users’ payment information. One needs to select the correct solution for a database. Such solutions as MySQL or Oracle are popular for some secured financial software.

Step 5 – Developing the MVP

Building on the MVP development plan from Step 2, you can start developing the most basic version of the trading software that you want. The trick in developing an MVP is to ensure that all features essential for your trading platform are included. These are features that make much difference to the user’s experience; thus, whatever functionality your target users require must be intuitive and accessible.

In this regard, to ensure efficiency and flexibility, we recommend the Agile software development methodology. This methodology will break down the process of trading software into phases and iterative cycles, usually called “sprints,” which generally last for 1 to 4 weeks. The development team will reconvene at the end of each sprint to review the progress that has been made and will make necessary adjustments to get the project back on course.

Step 6: Optimize security

Trading platforms will handle a lot of sensitive information related to assets as well as financial transactions of users. Therefore, ensuring security is extremely important in stock trading portal development. To ensure a high level of security for trading software, you can refer to several methods such as two-factor authentication, password/biometric authentication; role-based access control; system monitoring with intrusion detection tools; hardware or software firewalls; encryption using TLS, SSL, HTTPS, etc.

Step 7 – Comprehensive testing

After the trading software development phase is completed, you need to conduct thorough testing of the application’s or platform’s functionality. Without proper testing, you may face significant financial losses, and damage to your reputation due to critical bugs, and security vulnerabilities. To ensure that the testing process goes smoothly and effectively, we recommend hiring quality control experts to perform end-to-end testing for each platform and application. Before releasing the app, these experts will conduct comprehensive tests across various platforms and tools, using both manual and automated methods, to establish accurate performance.

Step 8 – Deployment, maintenance, and updates

Once the software has been quality-assured, it is time to deploy your trading system software on a larger scale. However, even after deploying the system or software, your work is not over. You will need to regularly monitor the performance of the platform and software to ensure maintenance, provide updates, and consider creative and useful features to enhance the customer experience. Additionally, once the application is operational, we also recommend strengthening your marketing efforts. Implement awareness campaigns to reach your target market, helping them understand the advantages of your system or software.

Challenges & Solutions of Trading Software Development

There’s no denying that trading platform development offers many benefits for businesses. However, the process also comes with several challenges. Below are some common challenges, along with some suggested solutions that we believe will be useful as you prepare for stock trading app development.

1. Difficulty estimating time and resources

When researching the plan for trading system development, many businesses face difficulties in estimating the time and resources required. Setting unrealistic deadlines and not accounting for various factors can result in lower quality during the development process.

• Solution: Use the right tools and techniques, and break down large and complex tasks into smaller and more manageable ones. During the planning phase, allow for extra time to address any minor issues. We also recommend using project management tools to track project-related activities.

2. Integration issues

Trading applications often need to integrate with many different tools, apps, and technologies within the same system. In particular, third-party apps can cause significant difficulties during the integration process.

• Solution: Test the compatibility of integration solutions before using them; monitor the integration process and ensure you have set up notifications to alert you when any component or process encounters an issue.

3. Feature overload

Integrating necessary features for customers during trading website development is extremely important. However, if you fail to identify the truly necessary features, adding too many features and applications based on customer requests can make you lose sight of the original goals of trading platform development. Eventually, you may end up with complex and cumbersome software that no one wants to use.

• Solution: Identify the core problems and pain points of your customers that you are aiming to solve, and select features based on these goals. Additionally, consider removing underused features to make room for newer, more important ones.

4. Security concerns

During stock trading app development, many developers do not prioritize security, treating it as an afterthought. Integrating security solutions can make the project more complex and take up a lot of time. This leads to developers rushing through security measures when project deadlines become tight.

• Solution: Gradually and continuously integrate security measures into each phase of the project.

5. Communication gaps

Communication gaps between developers and management can limit the productivity of trading software development, especially when working in a distributed environment with large teams or dealing with language barriers and geographical differences.

• Solution: Establish clear communication channels, hold regular discussions with team members to ensure everyone understands their responsibilities and the direction of the project, and provide stakeholders with regular updates during development.

6. Rapid technological advancements

Technology is advancing rapidly, and to maintain a competitive edge for your trading software, you need to stay updated on the latest tools and technologies. This means you must be adaptable to new changes while maintaining relevance.

• Solution: Regularly develop your development team’s skills and update their knowledge through courses and certifications.

How Much Does It Cost to Develop A Trading Platform?

One of the questions that bother many businesses is the cost of developing a trading platform. Of course, the exact figure can be influenced by too many factors. Below are some factors that can affect the cost of trading platform software development:

• – Complexity of the application: basic, average, or advanced.
• – Type of trading system: stocks, cryptocurrency, forex, futures, or hybrid models.
• – Security features to safeguard investors and data include multi-factor authentication, data encryption, etc.
• – Key features of the application.
• – Urgency: The more complex the application is, the longer the development will take, and the more expensive the development cost will be.
• – The expertise of the development team: Junior experts are cheaper to hire than mid-level and senior experts.
• – Technology stack: The operating system you choose, technologies, and APIs used in the development process will significantly affect the development cost.

Additionally, the cost of algorithmic trading software development will depend heavily on the development partner you choose. Based on our experience, stock trading software development can range from $25,000 to over $100,000.

Conclusion

The trading software market has witnessed explosive growth in recent years and will continue to rise in the coming years. The digitization of the financial industry, combined with the interest of individuals without financial expertise in investing, will serve as the foundation for the development of user-friendly, easy-to-use trading software in the future.

We hope the article above has helped you understand more about the trading platform development process. If you are looking for a partner to build a stock trading app, consider partnering with Luvina. Leveraging over 20 years of expertise in software development and financial technology, Luvina will advise your business on suitable solutions and provide development teams to help you build the trading platform you envision. Contact us today to discuss how to develop your own trading platform.

FAQ

How long does it take to build a trading platform?

The trading platform development process typically takes between 400 hours to a maximum of 2400 hours. The exact time will depend on the complexity of the application.

Which programming language is best for trading platforms?

To develop trading software or a platform, you may consider choosing from several programming languages such as C++, Java, Python, MATLAB, and others.

What is the most used trading software?

Some of the most widely used trading apps today include Robinhood, Cash App, eToro, Plus500, and others. consultation..