Balakrishnan's Mobile Platform Opens New Channels of Revenue
A case study on Mobile Apps in
Anup Varier
Executive Summary
By being among the first—if not the first—to provide its traders with a mobile platform, Geojit BNP Paribas' IT team has created a new channel of revenue for the company.
The Organization: As a share-broking and retail financial services company, Geojit BNP Paribas has always been an innovator. It was, for example, the first to offer online trading services in India in 2000. In keeping with that reputation, A. Balakrishnan, CTO, Geojit BNP Paribas, also wanted to ensure that the company was the first to have a mobile platform. “At a time when 40 percent of the retail market’s volume comes from the Internet, a mobile application has become a must-have,” he says.
But the regulators weren’t as open to the idea. “We kept an eye on global trends, realized the opportunity, and developed an app to enable our users. But on approaching the regulators we found that they weren’t yet ready with the necessary checks to allow its use,” he says.
So, he kept it in his back pocket and on the very day in September last year that the government allowed a mobile trading platform, Balakrishnan released it, making Geojit BNP Paribas, among the first, if not the first, in the Indian industry to offer mobile trading.
The Challenges: The FLIP-ME app (financial investment platform-mobile edition), allows customers to monitor the market in real-time, view technical charts, and trade scripts.
But being a pioneer has its challenges. “We did not have an Indian template to replicate,” recalls Balakrishnan. So they started from scratch. “We took the behavior of Indian trading into account and the comparatively small size of the device,” he says.
Balakrishnan says it was a challenge fitting in the large amount of information traders need on a mobile screen—and with bandwidth constraints. Balakrishnan says they also had to optimize traffic to stay true to the live nature of the market and customize the design of charts and presentations to provide maximum ease of use.
At the same time, Balakrishnan cut the amount a user needed to navigate, minimize the number of keystrokes required to perform basic functions, and keep the footprint of the app as small as possible. After multiple iterations and customer feedback, they finally came up with a Java-based app that runs on all GPRS-enabled mobiles, ensuring it’s usable on entry-level handsets and smartphones.
The Benefits: Today, Balakrishnan says over 50,000 customers—and over 4 percent of the company’s trading volume—come via the mobile app, and they are adding 4,000 users a month. It’s sturdy too: At any given point there are 800 people logged via the app. “And on days like when the market recently crashed by 700 points, the number of unique clients logged in to the system was 7,600,” he says.
Importantly, close to 38 percent of these log-ins lead to a customer punching an order. “Depending on the market’s performance, customers on the move can make a decision whether to buy or sell instead of calling their account managers or logging on to the Internet,” says Balakrishnan. By enabling traders to respond quickly to fluctuating market conditions, the app generates immediate revenue for the organization.
The Person Behind It
A. Balakrishnan, CTO
Geojit BNP Paribas
Almost 40 percent of traders who log in via the mobile app, also transact on it
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