Next only to South Korea, India is the second fastest growing market for mobile phone-based stock trading in the world, senior sources in Geojit BNP Paribas said. Illustrating the pace of growth of the Indian market, Mr A. Balakrishnan, CEO of Geojit Technologies, said that within a matter of one year, 10 per cent of the customers of Geojit BNP Paribas have shifted over to mobile trading.
Ever since mobile trading was introduced in the country in September 2010, almost 60,000 customers of Geojit BNP Paribas undertake transactions worth almost Rs 100 crore a day, over the mobile platform. Angel Broking, Kotak and India Infoline are some of the other major players in mobile trading.
Shift & value
The increasing shift to day trading and futures trading has made every minute and every rupee count. Investors have begun trading in tens of thousands of shares as huge volumes enable the investor to tap small incremental growth in value.
The small retail customer who invests in the stock market for long-term growth is increasingly becoming a rarity, Mr Balakrishnan said. Moreover, the long periods of market downturn have made the retail investor increasingly wary of staying invested.
Both internet trading and mobile trading has enabled the retail customer to track the stock market movements on a minute-by-minute basis. “Couple of rupees gain or fall can be transitory but can be captured by internet trading. The mobile trading is a flexible, dynamic and interactive facility which enables us to trade in the market even on the move.
“This is all the more important to people who take stock market investments seriously,” Mr Abraham Mathew, a serious player in rubber, pepper and cardamom futures market said.
He is lamenting the fact that mobile trading is still not available in the commodity futures market. Mobile trading would have enabled him to capture market information and trade even when he was on his weekly visit to the spice growing regions of the Cardamom Hill Reserve in Kerala.
Imperative
Mobile trading has become imperative in the life of Mr Unmesh Paul, a contractor who is always on the move. He is a day trader who revels in a falling market, selling short. His daily transactions have climbed sharply to Rs 15-20 lakh, while his tenure of investment has come down from months and years to days and hours. “Long term investment is passé, sell short and exit fast,” he says.
The changing pattern of trade and uninterrupted trading facilities has enabled mobile trading to grow rapidly during the last one year. And as the demand continues to grow, mobile trading is poised to grow even faster, Mr Balakrishnan said.