With the increasing number of smart phone users and number of brokerages offering mobile trading, the year 2012 saw a steadily increasing mobile trading numbers. Although these numbers are not significantly high, they show an upward rise in the trend towards mobile trading.

The number of mobile trading on the bourses has been increasing consistently over the year. Latest monthly data on the NSE show mobile trading made up 0.39 per cent of the total trades executed on the exchange. The number of clients trading through platform has increased to 29,879 in November from 2,526 in April 2011. The notional turnover increased to Rs 16,129 crore (November) from Rs 709 crore (April 2011).

On the BSE, mobile trading constituted 0.10 per cent of the total trades. The number of traders opting for mobile trading has been on the rise since the mobile trading platform launched in October 2010, said brokers.

Significant chunk

“We have seen a good response as far as mobile trading is concerned. We have an application that is available on all platforms and across most devices. Right now we are at a basic stage of adoption. In the next five to six years I feel mobile trading will make up a significant chunk of total trades,” said B. Gopkumar, Executive Vice-President and Head Broking, Kotak Securities.

The brokerage has 60,000 customers who trade via mobile (of this 30,000 are customers and remaining are guest users) and about 1.5 per cent of their overall business comes from mobile trading.

Key drivers for adoption of mobile trading are creation of more user friendly applications, better data connectivity and lower data costs.

The increasing number of large format mobile screens and tablets is also resulting in more people trading through devices.

“We have a product team that is focused on mobility. The distribution channel is very important and the age bracket that we feel will make use of this mobile trading the most is between 24 and 34 years,” added Gopkumar.

Telecom tie-up

Brokerages have also tied up with telecom operators and device makers to build-in the application in mobile stores (Ovi stores, BlackBerry stores). “About Rs 100 crore worth of business is generated through mobile trading for us. This is about 6-7 per cent of our overall business. We have seen a phenomenal growth in this segment.

“We feel that people who are using desktops and laptops for trading will soon move to tablets,” said A. Balakrishnan, CTO, Geojit BNP Paribas, where 20 per cent of their 1,00,000 customers login to their apps on a daily basis.

The brokerage also provides mobile customers facilities to view their portfolio through the application and directly dial into their call centre to place orders. Balakrishnan is very positive about mobile trading and said that it could make up about 10 to 15 per cent of their business next year.

> priya.s@thehindu.co.in

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