Sanjib Sahoo, Chief Technology Officer, tradeMONSTER

SuperNova Award Category

Next Generation Customer Experience

The Company

tradeMONSTER is one of the top online retail brokerages in North America. (Barron’s Ranking 2013: @ on.barrons.com/15P49ZJ). tradeMONSTER has set a new standard of innovation and excellence in the online brokerage industry since it was launched in 2008 and has been known as disruptors and leader in user experience in the online trading industry.

The Problem

In 2012, our business needed to convert an industry leading user experience (tradeMONSTER according to Barron’s: “Best for Options Traders”) onto a mobile platform, which allows the Company to cost efficiently manage its mobile platform(s) without compromising the user experience (including streaming market data) and change customers’ mindset to switch to trade actively on mobile devices/tablets though they were “traditionally” used to trade more on desktops/notebooks.

With the advent of mobiles/tablets we needed to give our users the same user experience on any device, anytime, anywhere and make it seamless such all of user’s portfolio, transactions were synced in real-time across all devices making it a seamless experience for our customers.

We  were losing customers due to lack of a quality mobile platform.

The Solution

In Feb. 2013,we launched our new mobile trading platform taking a web-based approach (primarily built on HTML5 and our home grown framework) and replicated the same web, easy-navigation user experience of our desktop platform on the mobile devices.

The iPAD specific version has unique customization features and simulates upto 4 trading applications in one iPAD; meaning  for the user they can feel  the same trading experience sitting in front of 4 monitors and trading actively from anywhere ( mountains, beaches, airports) they want.

Traders now have access to real-time market data( 8 billion quotes in 6.5 hours of trading) and can control the data update rate at a speed which they are comfortable and can even customize their view, layouts, themes and hence experience a next generation trading experience on mobile.

The Results

tradeMONSTER two times now has disrupted the trading industry, first with streaming browser based trading platform and now with the first HTML5 mobile trading platform and a subsequent multi-screen, uniquely customizable industry-first  full-fledged IPAD trading app and making mobility our focus and key strategy for the last one year.

Mobile trading platforms before us were very basic with customers checking positions or balances but not actively trading; which has been changed with our platform showing wide adoption and engagement from customers since launch.

Providing the same and even better user experience on the mobile and tablets as our desktop web platform and enabling traders with desktop power on the go, we have been able to raise the bar for customer  experience for traders in the industry

The Technology

tradeMONSTER Mobile Elite, tradeMONSTER Tablet, tradeMONSTER

Metrics

  • 15% of all total users who login to the tradeMONSTER platform now login and use tradeMONSTER Mobile.
  • Since its launch in February to date, the mobile platform (including the iPad app) had 100,000+ user logins.
  • Gross Commissions from the iPad app alone have increased at an average of 105% every month making it a business strategy for us.
  • Revenue trades submitted through IPAD since launch in Feb have increased at an average of 86% every month
  • About 3,000,000 shares have been traded with tradeMONSTER mobile.
  • About 5% of the total orders from tradeMONSTER customers now come from mobile already within few months of launch.
  • The logins to the tradeMONSTER mobile has increased at an average of 45% every month.
  • The orders submitted through tradeMONSTER mobile have increased at an average of 50% every month since its launch in February.
  • Contracts traded through tradeMONSTER mobile have increased at an average of 66% every month since its launch in February.

Disruptive Factor

This is the first HTML5 mobile trading platform in the US trading industry; when Facebook and LinkedIn have moved away from HTML5,we could have gone a safer route of native, but with the belief that “web is alive”, we demonstrated the power of HTML5 in the most mission critical performance-intrinsic trading industry and solved performance, security and stability issues with HTML5.

The iPad version has unique customization features that brings multi-screen desktop capability on an iPad, a game changer in the trading industry.( http://ubm.io/1cvt6uG) defining new heights of user experience.

Several professional grade trading tools (primarily for options ) requiring complex computations are now available in the mobile app giving traders the desktop power on the go and bringing rich user experience “Anywhere, Anytime.” defining the new era in online trading.

Shining Moment

Barrons ranked our mobile app the best in the North American Trading industry and stated “this is a terrific, comprehensive platform” and ranked 4.9 out of 5. http://bit.ly/XG16Bc and helping to make us the top 2 brokers in the USA.(http://bit.ly/ZE2GBf)

techCrunch(http://tcrn.ch/1esW2En) and BusinessInsider(http://read.bi/11ewtpe) used our app as an example to compare HTML5 with native and demonstrate what HTML5 can do.

WallStreet Technology wrote several articles on how this app(http://ubm.io/1cvt6uG) and especially the iPad app is changing WallStreet and demonstrating the bleak future of PCs(http://ubm.io/1cvt6uG). Other media like Citeworld, Crain’s, NBC Chicago, CDW, Wired and even a book on HTML5 has talked about our app and approach.

One of our customers gave a feedback about our mobile “ This is even better than the web platform. Kudos to tradeMONSTER”.

Forbes recognized us as a technology disruptor after this mobile innovation, and Sanjib Sahoo, CTO was awarded 2013 CIO of the year, mainly for this innovation(http://on.wsj.com/19aZ9Uv ) . Our development team won the ITA Citylights award for this mobile innovation.

Currently a Harvard Business Review case study is in progress for this app  and how it broke myths and redefined an industry .  Our mobile case study has been and will be presented in several national/international conferences.

 

 

About tradeMONSTER

tradeMONSTER (www.tradeMONSTER.com) is one of the top online retail brokerages in North America and has set a new standard of innovation and excellence for the industry since it was launched in 2008. It has become a major disruptor in trading technology while also emerging as the industry’s leader in user experience, as reflected by the "Best for Options Traders" designation by Barron’s for the fourth consecutive year. tradeMONSTER was the first online broker to deploy a streaming desktop-like trading experience in a web-browser, featuring professional grade tools in a dynamic and customizable interface combined with integrated investor education, transparent commissions and an extremely knowledgeable and dedicated customer service team. 

Additionally, tradeMONSTER is offering a groundbreaking mobile experience on all major mobile platforms and devices through tradeMONSTER Mobile. In June, tradeMONSTER released its widely anticipated iPad app, the first HTML5-based iPad app (patent pending) in the online brokerage industry, offering a full range of tradeMONSTER’s trading tools: http://bit.ly/19KY1Uz

tradeMONSTER's technology team prides itself on constant customer driven innovation and has been granted several patents for its technology and one-of-kind investment tools embedded on the tradeMONSTER platform. All securities and investments are offered through tradeMONSTER. Member FINRA/SIPC/NFA.