Reliance Securities bets big on mobile trading in derivatives

The company expects over 30% of its broking business to come from mobile trading platforms

Betting big on mobile trading in derivatives market, leading brokerage Reliance Securities today said it it investing heavily in new technologies including robo-analytics and expects over 30% of its broking business to come from mobile trading platforms.

"The number of mobile traders increased from six lakhs to nine lakhs in last one year (growth of 50%). In volume terms, we see this emerging as a Rs 6,000 crore market in next 2-3 years and scaling upto Rs 10,000 crore in next five years," Reliance Securities CEO B Gopkumar told PTI.

Reliance Securities, the broking and distribution business of Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group's financial services arm Reliance Capital, has recently launched new trading platforms, including a mobile-based trading product for derivatives.

Gopkumar said the mobile market share in overall trading will grow to 3-4% in next couple of years, where more than 90% of volume share will still be from futures and options.

"We have launched two products Tick and Tick Pro. While Tick is a web trading platform aimed to provide a normal user offering features of a high-end dedicated platforms at affordable rates under our value broking model, Tick Pro is India's first mobile app specially for derivatives market. We believe there is a huge potential for this segment," he said.

Talking about the derivatives market, Kumar said an estimated 94% of overall market volumes is contributed by derivatives.

"Of this about 60% is purely through online trading translating into Rs 60,000 crore daily volume. Cash market is a minuscule 6%. Derivative volume has grown by 150% in the last seven years compared to cash market volumes which grew only by 50%," he said.

He further said that in the last one year, the overall market share of mobile trading has increased from 0.5% to 1.2%.

"In volume terms, the daily average volume growth on mobile has increased from Rs 600 crore to nearly Rs 1,600 crore. 90% of this volume of mobile trading is derivative trading.

"Within the online platforms, Futures and Options volume on mobile grew three-times in fiscal 2015-16 whereas growth in other online platforms was at 55%," he added.

Kumar said more contracts would be added while extension of market timings and introduction of options in commodity markets would be other key drivers for growth of the market.

"On the technology front, dedicated and customised platforms for Futures and Options traders, like TickPro, that focus specifically on derivative trading on mobile will aid the growth," he said.

On Reliance Securities, Kumar said, "We would not like to limit our growth in this segment by any number but are hopeful of taking at least a 30% share of this mobile market with our dedicated app and platforms.

"Our key focus is to make it so simple for the trader to take derivative calls by virtually eliminating complex excels and calculations, that these trades can be completed on mobile. We hope to be the biggest broker in terms of mobile derivative trading is concerned."

In the next three years, Kumar said Reliance Securities expects over 30% of its broking business to come from mobile users and mobile apps.

"We are investing heavily in technology - backed by Robo analytics and big data - to induce a shift in trading and enabling complex trade calls to be executed easily on our mobile," he added.