Stock trading apps and personal finance

Everyday investing, and the apps that look after a person's own money

Go back one last time to the software engineer in Pune from Market Segment 20.1, Exchanges, clearing and trading platforms. So far, we have followed her money from the outside. We saw the exchange that matched her ten shares, the system her mutual fund runs on, and the data its fund manager reads. This Market Segment looks at her own phone. On it, she:

buys shares and mutual funds through an app
saves a little every day
checks her credit score
files her income tax return
plans for retirement

In India, this has become a mass market within a few years. Tens of millions of new investors have opened accounts on their phones. A large share of the apps they use is built in Bengaluru.

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

This Market Segment has two sub-segments:

Investing and trading apps: the brokers, funds and savings apps

Your own money: the software for personal tax, credit and planning

The five things the engineer does with money on her phone, with the companies on this page that sell the apps for each: buying shares and funds and saving a little every day belong to the first sub-segment, while checking her credit score, filing her tax return and planning for retirement belong to the second.

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Investing and trading apps
Your own money

Investing and trading apps

Retail broking and trading apps, passive funds, fixed-income and gold savings apps, trading education, syndicate investing

Take the engineer's ten shares from the start of this Market Segment. She bought them through a broker: a firm licensed to buy and sell shares on an exchange for its customers. A full-service broker also gives advice and research. A discount broker charges less and gives only the trading app.

A broker, a firm licensed to trade on the exchange, sits between the engineer and the exchange. A full-service broker such as SMC Group gives a trading app, advice and research, while a discount broker such as Rupeezy charges less and gives only the trading app.

HDFC securities

with engineers in Bengaluru, is the broking arm of HDFC Bank. It sells the HDFC Sky app. (More on HDFC Bank in Market Segment 18.4, Banks and NBFCs, in Industry Vertical 18, Lending and credit.)

SMC Group

with engineers in Delhi NCR, is one of India's older full-service brokers.

Rupeezy

with engineers in Bengaluru, is a newer discount broker.

Zanskar Research

with engineers in Bengaluru, builds high-frequency trading technology. It also builds Nubra, a trading app built on that technology, which is listed here under its own name. (More on high-frequency trading in Market Segment 20.4, Hedge funds and high-frequency trading.)

marketfeed

automates options trading for retail investors, meaning ordinary individuals. Retail options trading is the product the regulator has worried about most. (More on options in Market Segment 20.4, Hedge funds and high-frequency trading.)

StockGro

teaches trading through a simulated market, where users trade with pretend money. (Because of this, StockGro also appears in Market Segment 42.5, Upskilling platforms and coding bootcamps, in Industry Vertical 42, Edtech.)

IG Group

with engineers in Bengaluru, is a British trading platform for contracts for difference (CFDs) and currencies. With a CFD, a trader bets on a price moving up or down, without owning the asset.

The rest of the companies here help people save and invest, rather than trade.

Zerodha Fund House

with engineers in Bengaluru, runs index funds and ETFs. An index fund buys all the shares in an index, such as India's fifty largest companies. An ETF (exchange-traded fund) is a fund whose units are bought and sold on an exchange, like shares.

Jar

with engineers in Bengaluru, lets people save small amounts in digital gold every day, from their phone. Digital gold is real gold, bought in small amounts and stored in a vault for the buyer.

Stable Money

sells fixed deposits and bonds from many banks, in one app.

Lxme

with engineers in Mumbai, is an investing platform for women.

StationX

lets investors join syndicates that invest in start-ups. A syndicate is a group of investors who put money into a start-up together, led by one experienced investor.

Trackk Young India Investment Platform

is an investing app built for beginners. It is meant for people handling money for the first time, and for people who are curious about investing but do not yet know how.

Your own money

Personal tax filing, credit score monitoring and improvement, debt management, retirement and financial planning

Back to the engineer's phone. Every July, she files her income tax return. Before she takes a loan, she checks her credit score. (More on credit scores in Market Segment 18.3, Credit bureaus, scoring and underwriting, in Industry Vertical 18, Lending and credit.) The companies here sell the software for this side of her money.

Intuit

has almost all of its Indian job postings in Bengaluru, and the most job postings in this Market Segment. Its Bengaluru centre is among its largest outside America. Intuit sells:

TurboTax, the software with which Americans file their tax returns
QuickBooks, the accounting software of small businesses
Mailchimp, the email marketing tool
Credit Karma, which shows people their credit score for free, and suggests loans and cards from many lenders

Credit Karma is also listed here under its own name, with engineers in Bengaluru. (Because of QuickBooks, Intuit also appears in Market Segment 11.3, Financial close, FP&A and tax software, in Industry Vertical 11, Finance and accounting software.)

Prosperr.io

with engineers in Bengaluru, sells tax filing to India's salaried employees. It also sells flexible benefits: parts of the salary, such as meal and travel allowances, that reduce the tax an employee pays.

GoodScore

with engineers in Bengaluru, helps Indians improve their credit scores. It gives advice, and sells the loan products that build a good score.

Bright Money

manages Americans' credit-card debt automatically.

Edelman Financial Engines

is an American retirement adviser. Its automated planning reaches people through their employers.

The financial plan in a conversation.

An investor with a phone and no adviser can now use an AI model. It can read their accounts, explain their tax, compare their options and draft a plan. The apps in this Market Segment are adding that assistant. They must not cross the regulator's line between education and advice.

That is everyday investing. The engineer buys her shares on a broker's app, saves in gold a little at a time, files her tax and checks her credit score, all on her phone.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What wealthtech and capital markets hires for.

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