- Types of Investment Apps
- Education-centered investment apps:
- Apps for conducting trades:
- Apps for brokers:
- Banking apps:
- Why should you create an investment app?
- How to develop a mobile investment app?
- 1. Plan
- 2. Establish business model
- 3. Abide by the law and the regulations
- 4. Understand compliance requirements
- 5. Find the appropriate development team
- 6. Develop the main app
- 7. Test and improve
- 8. Upkeep and support your app
- Examples of Successful Investment Apps
- Features Your Investment App Must Have
- 1. Onboarding and registration
- 2. Personal profiles
- 3. Tools for managing money
- 4. Money withdrawal capabilities
- 5. Safety and security
- 6. Push notifications
- 7. Electronic wallet
- 8. Financial knowledge and AI consultation
- How Much Does it Cost to Develop an Investment App?
- How to Monetize the Investment App?
- Partner with Appinventiv to Build a Robust Investment App
- FAQs
Our lives have been heavily impacted by digitization in many spheres and investing is no different.
When investing in stocks first became popular, many individuals wanted to do it, but it demanded specific training, agents, brokers, and other things. However, all we need today is a smartphone and an investment app! Yes, the ability to manage micro-investments is now practical for even a teenager.
The prevalence of micro-investing is at an all-time high, and even teenagers can access the markets. Passive income is becoming attractive to millennials, and grandparents are now giving their grandchildren Apple shares as a birthday present. All of this is made possible because of the investment applications. The market craze for these apps is therefore evident.
The profit margin of having an investment mobile app is illustrated by several figures. Here are a few:
- Google searches for investments have increased yearly by 115%.
- According to Statista, the global e-trading market is anticipated to increase from $8.7 billion in 2021 to $12.16 billion in 2028, indicating a CAGR of 5%.
- Within the last 12 months, at least 10% of people across all age groups used an online investment tool.
- According to a Bankrate poll, 63% of smartphone owners have at least one financial app installed, and 17% of these are stand-alone investment apps.
According to the above data, demand for investment platforms is already at an all-time high, and the future growth rate will be considerably higher.
Additionally, the numbers imply that your decision to develop a new and the best online investment app is supported by both market data and internal intuition.
A thorough answer is a must on the topic of how to create an investment app. Therefore, read our comprehensive article on how to succeed in investment app development if you want to join the league of providers of investment options.
Types of Investment Apps
Before you start creating your investment app, you need to prepare yourself. Based on your finalization of the type of application, you will be required to create the features and decide on the team size, structure, and technology to be used. Listed below are some of the commonly used investment apps:
Education-centered investment apps:
Beginners can acquire the fundamentals of financial literacy with the aid of this category of investment app.
Example: Invstr
Apps for conducting trades:
This type of investment app permits stock trading and can make investments on your behalf.
Examples: Robinhood, Charles Schwab, Stash
Apps for brokers:
These apps cater to customers who already understand what they want to buy. Typically, you can trade both fiat money and cryptocurrency here.
Examples: WealthBase, Ellevest
Banking apps:
These numerous online banking services and apps let users manage their accounts and carry out transactions, deposits, investments, taking loans, and more. Such apps normally belong to licensed financial institutions.
Examples: Chime, Chase Mobile, Ally Bank, Bank of America
Why should you create an investment app?
An investment app provides you real-time information about publicly traded companies. This mobile application empowers you to stay updated on the stock market and other financial sector investments. Having a hawk’s eye on the investment market helps you capitalize on the readily available information at your fingertips at nominal application fees. Here are a few reasons you should consider building an investment app.
- The overwhelming popularity of the electronic investment industry is the first reason for building an investment app. More and more users are experimenting with stock trading, portfolio management, and saving strategies.
- The abundance of niches you can inhabit is the second argument in favor of building an investment app. You might wish to develop a platform for new users to learn, add retirement plan options, or even start selling gift cards for cryptocurrency purchases.
- Another factor to take into account is the cost that amateur investors are prepared to pay for a portfolio with a diverse range of investments. Mutual funds, banks, and investment trusts impose exorbitant fees for their services, frightening away regular people. Similar work is done online but at a far lower cost. More opportunities are available if you are willing to pay a higher rate, including managing margin accounts, working more hours, and achieving individual investing goals.
How to develop a mobile investment app?
With growing market demand and expectations of the users, a robust and sophisticated mobile investment app has become a must-have in their list of applications on their handhelds. To stay relevant, competitive, or better ahead in the race of most used and liked apps, developing a functional and user-friendly app necessitates following a structured approach. Here are the five steps you must follow to put your worries about how to develop the best mobile investment app to rest.
1. Plan
Give yourself ample time to consider and plan the app you’re about to create. You should now start asking yourself questions about your company’s goals. Does your company actually require investment app development? What specific benefits and performance enhancements can you anticipate? Is this really the best course of action for your company’s growth? Evaluate your company’s tolerance for risk in several situations if something goes wrong.
2. Establish business model
A business model must be developed at the time of financial planning. What will the cost of your services be? What percentage of the commission do you hope to receive? Let’s use Acorn as one of the investment platform examples for your reference. To use their services, users must pay $1 per month. In addition, it enables users to profit from the transaction through pockets and recommendations.
3. Abide by the law and the regulations
Any laws and regulations that apply to your operations in the countries where you propose to conduct business must be strictly observed while creating any FinTech application. The privacy of your users may be subject to laws and regulations (such as GDPR), as well as to your company’s operations.
4. Understand compliance requirements
Before starting the core development process of the investment app, it is critical to understand the legal and regulatory requirements of the region.
Every country has its own regulatory body that sets the rules for internet space and financial environment. However, the basic frameworks remain somewhat similar and are primarily related to – end user privacy, intellectual property, marketing and advertising, and money laundering detection.
Mentioned below is the list of regulatory bodies and legal compliance of the corresponding countries:
| USA | The Anti-Money Laundering Act 2020, Security Exchange Act 1934 |
| UK | UK Industry Act, The Rule Book of London Stock Exchange |
| Canada | Commodity Futures Act |
5. Find the appropriate development team
Several methods exist for locating developers. Let’s quickly go over them and talk about their benefits and drawbacks.
Form an internal team
The advantages of this choice include complete control over the app development process and easier communication. However, you will need to invest time in recruiting and onboarding, as well as pay salaries that are comparable to those in your industry and provide benefits that will keep your employees on board. It is important to know the team structure that would be required to develop an investment app.
| Required Team Members | Role Description |
|---|---|
| Project Manager | The role involves managing the complete project that involves coordinating with the development team and taking strategic decisions. |
| UI/UX Designer | To get the first look of the product and its functionalities, it is the responsibility of the designer to create a wireframe and an actionable prototype of the product. |
| Backend Programmer | Self-described – backend programmer is responsible for coding features and functionalities at the backend. |
| Mobile Developer | With the interface designed by the UI/UX designer, the mobile developer helps in translating the code into the mobile application. |
| QA Tester | Ensuring that the app is in line with the expectations set in the discovery phase. Checking for bugs and loopholes by testing the initial application to ensure that no breaches are happening. |
| DevOps | By bringing together operations and development, DevOps helps in automating various aspects of the coding process. |
Additionally, to create an investment app, the team should be adept with the below-listed tech stacks:
| Aspect | Required Tech Stack |
|---|---|
| Mobile Programming Language | React Native or Flutter for a hybrid app, JAVA and Kotlin for Android app, or Objective-C and Swift for iOS app. |
| Backend Development | LAMP, NodeJS, Laravel |
| Database Management | MongoDB, MySQL |
| UI/UX Design | Balsamiq, Principle, Figma |
| Product Management | Confluent, Jira Software |
Involve freelancers
You won’t be able to create the best online investment app with just one or two employees because it is a very complex process. The team requires many experts, including designers, QA engineers, project managers, and investment app developers.
While you can recruit freelancers, it’s tricky to handle a freelance team, fulfill deadlines, and stay within budget at the same time.
Join forces with a software development company
With this choice, you get the best of both worlds: you only pay for the work that is delivered, you can grow or reduce your team as needed, and you receive a project manager to make sure your spending is within reason.
6. Develop the main app
Initiate the app development with the software development company you hired. To put it simply, it involves creating an MVP for the best mobile investment app. You can add more functionality once your mobile app has the bare minimum capabilities required to function. You may, for instance, make an investment in next-layer security and add gamification and enhanced UI/UX components.
7. Test and improve
With an MVP present, programmers and QA engineers keep testing and enhancing the app’s functionality, eventually releasing all features in accordance with their priority. This stage ends with a finished app that is made available for purchase and download.
8. Upkeep and support your app
You’ll need to keep the current features up-to-date in addition to creating new ones. Maintenance, which includes upgrades to support the new operating system editions, library, third-party service updates, and other tasks, often consumes 20% to 50% of the original app budget annually.
To prevent security flaws, it’s crucial to upgrade library and framework versions. Additionally, be sure to routinely test your app for speed and security flaws.
Naturally, not every investment app development fully adheres to this process, particularly when it comes to creating the best mobile investment apps. However, this strategy can work as a solid foundation to guarantee successful development outcomes. You may move on with the development processes methodically and resolve conflicts that arise along the way by focusing on the Agile methodology.
Examples of Successful Investment Apps
Now that we have learned about the types of investment apps and the steps to make a robust investment app, let us look at some examples of successful investment apps:
- Betterment – With negligible management fees of 0.25-0.40% of the assets annually, this investment app is apt for someone who likes having a professionally managed portfolio along with a cash management account. The app provides the facility of using a selection of ETFs that are calibrated against your risk tolerance. It caters to different clients from risk-taking portfolios to safer portfolio management. It also lets you set up your goals for investment with no minimum account requirements.
- Invstr – There is no minimum balance required to set up a portfolio with Invstr. For novice investors, this application helps to provide a learning platform by hearing from the experts about why and which stocks are their favorite. The app combines the fantasy stock game for managing virtual portfolios that will help you learn about the stocks in a fun way. They have recently started offering commission-free trading in cryptocurrency.
- Acorns – This investment app is meant for investors who like getting automatic investments while spending them without worry or if you want retirement investment without hassle. It is considered to be one of the best apps for savings.
- Robinhood – The Robinhood investment app is best for active trading. With zero commission and no required minimum balance, you get a smooth interface for trading stocks, ETFs, or cryptocurrency. Visually appealing statistics in the form of charts on the stock page provide an analytical view and facilitate quick trading.
Features Your Investment App Must Have
Let’s now discuss the features of your application, particularly those that your MVP will unquestionably require. These are merely the fundamental elements that can be found in the most well-liked investment applications; you can alter this list in accordance with your investment app ideas, finances, and marketing approach.
1. Onboarding and registration
Provide users with the option to sign up using their phone number, email address, or other details. An investment tracking app must have a feature to verify documents to ensure that users are authentic.
You should provide users with a walkthrough of your app after they register. Point out the important characteristics and the investment pipelines as you show them around.
2. Personal profiles
A user’s portfolio, chosen payment methods, and personal information should all be included in a personal profile. Personal profiles can also have setting options added to them.
Make sure creating a personal account is as easy and intuitive as possible to avoid putting off your users from the moment they start using your service.
3. Tools for managing money
Money management tools have a unique place on this list that you need to add if you intend to launch an investing platform.
Why? People frequently look for the best approach to managing their money. Therefore, you should provide your users with robust dashboards that include tools for managing money, savings, and credit. Use interactive bars, pie charts, infographics, and other visual aids. The information should be insightful and visually appealing throughout. Deliver daily, monthly, and quarterly reports to give your users a consistent impression of their financial and investing activity. It is a great way to boost user retention for your investment app.
4. Money withdrawal capabilities
According to trade regulations, your users should be given the functionality to withdraw their investments into their bank accounts. You must incorporate a bank account into your investment app development in order to do this.
5. Safety and security
Any investment app must have data protection as a standard feature. A strong IDPS should be added to handle DDoS attacks, encryption techniques, anti-spam, two-factor authentication, and phishing protection. The user experience improves as you add more security measures.
6. Push notifications
Don’t forget to include push notifications, real-time alerts, and personalized reminders when developing an investment application. With their assistance, the system can alert clients about intriguing deals, discounts, and promotions, as well as their current account status and the rising or falling value of specific assets.
7. Electronic wallet
In essence, this is where the funds for upcoming investments are kept. The key requirements are utmost security and simple accessibility for an individual qualified to oversee the valuables kept there. The best online investment app should be able to connect to the bank and credit card networks in order to receive timely updates and to securely protect user data on the phone.
8. Financial knowledge and AI consultation
An app that allows you to buy and sell has a lower value than one that also offers information to its users about investing. Think about including financial literacy education for novices in the form of engaging articles or short films, together with an AI-powered consultant who assists in making the right choices by swiftly giving relevant insights. An AI investment app will also give you a competitive advantage in the market.
How Much Does it Cost to Develop an Investment App?
A typical investment app development costs between $70,000 and $120,000. You can use this money to add crucial features that let you purchase and sell assets, gather statistics, and use notifications to inform the user of significant events. Advanced investment app features can be integrated into more sophisticated solutions, which cost twice as much.
The cost of development can fluctuate depending on various factors. The in-house development team will comparatively cost you more than the cost of outsourcing the complete project. The cost of development is also dependent on the region the developer is hired from. Outsourcing, normally is the preferred choice as they charge on hourly rates that are affordable. The table below will provide you with a fair idea about the cost in US $ of development based on hourly rates:
| Region/Specialist | Frontend developers | Backend developer | iOS developers | Android developers | UI/UX designers | QA engineers | DevOps engineers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North America | 130-150 | 130-150 | 130-250 | 150-170 | 50-150 | 50-150 | 100-150 |
| Australia | 100-110 | 100-110 | 80-150 | 110-120 | 50-150 | 50-150 | 100-150 |
| Europe | 61-80 | 61-80 | 120-175 | 120-175 | 50-100 | 50-100 | 100-150 |
| Asia | 35-55 | 35-55 | 30-75 | 45-75 | 20-50 | 20-50 | 30-50 |
| South America | 45-80 | 45-80 | 80-120 | 80-120 | 50-100 | 50-100 | 50-100 |
Certain other factors come into play while contemplating the development of an app. These include:
- The size of the user base/audience
- Required experience and expertise
- Technology stack
- Functions and investment app features
- Features for safety and security
- App platform and design
How to Monetize the Investment App?
The end goal of creating any application usually is to make it profitable. Thus, it is vital to include the monetization strategies at the time of planning. There are many ways to make money from the application. Let us discuss some of the commonly used methods
- In-app purchases – When the user becomes familiar with the interface and the application while looking for the options of getting enhanced features and better control on investment decisions, these add-ons are provided on a chargeable basis.
- Subscription fee – The investment apps might provide you the option of creating your account for free. However, they may charge a subscription fee to facilitate you with trading options.
- Advertisements – Partner companies may run ads on your app. Users see these ads to keep the app free of subscription fees.
Partner with Appinventiv to Build a Robust Investment App
Creating a mobile application seems to be a simple project, however, requires expertise on multiple fronts from being innovative to know the sector and an experienced and expert technical team. Thus, when you plan to develop a mobile app within a highly particular category, such as investment, insurance, communication, socializing, and more, you must put up diligent efforts.
We at Appinventiv are here to assist if you’re looking for a skilled and reliable fintech software development partner. We have a sizable portfolio of successfully completed projects for businesses of various sizes and operating in various industries including FinTech like Mudra, Asian Bank, Bajaj Finserv, and more.
By partnering with us, you can be confident that we’ll give your investment app our full attention and enhance its usefulness with a vast array of high-performing tools and components.
FAQs
Q. What is an investment app?
A. An investment app is a mobile application designed to provide information about publicly traded companies. The investment tracking app allows both novice and experienced investors to keep tabs on their stock market and other financial sector investments. These investment applications offer a variety of flexible resources at minimal application fees, helping investors increase their investments and save money.
Q. How much does it cost to build an investment app?
A. A typical investment app development can cost anything between $70,000 and $120,000. You can use this money to add crucial features that let you purchase and sell assets, gather statistics, and use notifications to inform the user of significant events. Advanced features can be integrated into more sophisticated solutions, which cost twice as much.
Q. How to create an investment app?
A. The important steps in developing an investment app include the following.
- Plan
- Establish business models
- Abide by the law and the regulations
- Find the appropriate development team
- Initiate the app development
- Test and improve
- Upkeep and support your app
Q. How can a company make money through an investment app?
A. Some ways that investment apps make money include interest, rebates, and charging users for premium accounts that provide them access to premium investment alternatives.
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