LankaBangla, City Brokerage to change online trading experience

Lags and disruptions during trading, mandatory typing of complex passwords for every action, and a lack of many needed features – all have been behind the tech-savvy stock investors' irritation with mobile trading apps of the bourses.

The problems in direct stock trading from smartphones are set to go as two of the leading stockbrokers have launched alternatives to the bourses' mobile trading apps and they have well addressed the problems.

Like it is all over the world, the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) nowadays is allowing interested brokers direct access to its core trading system, technically called the matching engine, from the brokers' order management system (OMS), bypassing that of the bourse.

Already having the DSE active programme interface (API) shared, brokerage industry leader LankaBangla Securities and another top-tier firm City Brokerage have successfully launched their own OMS on Monday on a limited scale and is planning for a complete adoption by this month.

TradeXpress, the OMS of LankaBangla Securities, will change your online trading experience for sure, said its Director and Chief Technology Officer SAR Md Muinul Islam.

City Infinity is the OMS of City Brokerage Ltd.

Both firms told The Business Standard that they have introduced world-class OMS platforms.

Unlike the DSE Mobile app, the brokers' own OMSs, which investors can use both from their personal computers and smartphones for direct trading, are very seamless and have zero lag, regardless of how many users remain active at a time.

CSE Chitra, the OMS app of the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), is yet to gain enough popularity due to the bourse's low market share in securities transactions, while the DSE Mobile app is overburdened with too many users at a time.

Muinul Islam said his system can be used by up to 1 lakh of LankaBangla Securities clients, while it has 60,000 clients right now. Three redundant servers and a decent investment to ensure the promptness of everything will change the experience.

The firm will continue its huge investments for an edge in technology in the brokerage industry, he added.

Both brokers' OMSs will get their modern back-office system integrated that would ensure buy-sell risk management. For example, clients can only execute their legitimate buy and sell orders and no orders beyond that would be accepted by the system.

DSE Mobile and CSE Chitra are doing the job well right now, however, the best parts of the TradeXpress OMS are its smooth direct market access, simultaneous trading in both the DSE and CSE through a single app from anywhere in the world, said LankaBangla Securities CTO.

The advanced features

Md Muinul Islam said many advanced features of their trading app will make investors' life easier.

Alongside the conventional orders to buy or sell securities at an aimed price, investors can choose conditional orders that would allow their pre-set orders to buy-sell if the market shifts otherwise.

For example, like the rest of the world, investors can stop loss-orders which will sell their matured securities only if the market price breaks down below the price point pre-set to match their allowed limit of loss tolerance.

Also, a scrip will be bought only after its price breaks out a predetermined range.

Both the features are important to investors who prefer market timing to cash in on the trends.

Also, strategic orders would enable investors to depend on the OMS algorithm to decide their buy-sell orders, a must for modern high-frequency trading. 

Advance order features will allow investors to put their buy-sell orders at a convenient time while DSE-CSE apps do not accept orders for the next day.

"Decide on your orders when you are calm," said Muinul Islam.

Both firms have got their OMS platform equipped with such advanced features.

LankaBangla Securities will be gradually opening the features for the interested clients only, based on their readiness, said its CTO.

DSE Chief Operating Officer M Shaifur Rahman Mazumdar told TBS that broker-owned OMS would reduce trade hour overloads on the DSE OMS.

Some more brokers are in the pipeline to introduce their own OMSs, he added.

Though the technology demands high investments, that can reduce operating costs of brokerage firms as desktop versions of brokers' OMSs would turn each client PC into a workstation which associates a cost of maintaining terminals and deploying brokerage employees there.

LankaBangla invested a lot in data security in their OMS and back-office platforms, said its CTO.

Now the true spirit of digitalisation is to be enjoyed as their clients can do everything online, from anywhere, anytime.

The online services will be free of charge, both the brokers confirmed.