How to Create an Investment App Like Acorns?

Investment apps are becoming increasingly popular as they enable people to manage their finances literally on the go. If you’re thinking of creating an investment platform, keep reading.

In this article

1. APIs to develop investment apps
2. How to manage the mobile backend for the investment app
3. Investment app development: Important tools
4. A project team for the mobile investment app development project
5. Project management approach for investment app development
6. The investment app development cost
7. Frequently Asked Questions on investment apps

Without further ado, let’s dive deep into the topic.

Creating mobile investment apps is a development project. You need to do the following:

1. Develop the UI of the mobile app. Your UI/UX designers should know relevant Mobile navigation menu examples. Your Android and iOS developers need to develop the front-end for the respective platforms.
2. Common functions can be built using investment ‘Application Programming Interfaces’ (APIs). This saves some development effort.
3. You can expedite the creation of the investment mobile app by using a ‘Mobile Backend as a Service’ (MBaaS) provider. More on this later.
4. Test the app thoroughly.
5. Publish in the app stores. Check the guidelines for Google Play and Apple App Store.

APIs to develop investment apps

In this section, I will describe a few API options you can consider to build an investment app. Depending on your requirements, you might need to combine more than one option.

API option #1: Plaid API to connect bank accounts to the app

Plaid offers API for developers to implement the key function of connecting a bank account to the investing app. Access their API. Banking and brokerage are a few key use cases of these APIs.

Their quick start guides are here. To get their pricing details, visit their pricing page. Contact them for more information.

API option #2: Xignite Market Data Feed and API

QUODD (that acquired Xignite recently) provides market data feed APIs. These can help you with the market data feed functionality of your investing app. They provide the market data feed for a variety of investment instruments, e.g., equities, funds, ETFs, fixed income instruments, indices, futures, options trading feeds, forex data feeds, commodities feeds like metals, derivatives, etc.

They have a wide range of data sources, including exchanges, data vendors, and public data sources like SEC. Learn more about their data sources. The company provides cloud-based real-time, historical, master, and fundamentals data. Read more about this here.

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Access their entire developer documentation. Visit their pricing page for details about their flexible pricing plans. Contact their sales team to buy their APIs.

API option #3: Ally Invest APIs

Ally offers their investment APIs that you can use in your investment app. With this, you can offer features for self-directed trading and managed-portfolio, which is essential for investing apps.

Some of the features are as follows:

• Streaming charts;
• Market and company snapshots;
• Watchlists;
• Option chains;
• Profile/loss calculator;
• Probability calculator;
• Market data.

To access their APIs, you need to create a developer account on their developer portal. The documentation is comprehensive. For e.g., it includes the following:

• Security;
• OAuth;
• Trading;
• Account calls;
• Order/trade calls;
• Market calls;
• Member calls;
• Watchlist calls.

The above list is not exhaustive. Contact them for their API pricing plans.

API option #4: Quandl API for stock data

Quandl is a well-known source of financial and economic data. They offer their APIs for stock data. You can include the following data in your investment app with their APIs:

• End-of-day stock prices;
• Historical stock fundamental data;
• Harmonized fundamentals;
• Financial ratios;
• Indexes;
• Options and volatility;
• Earnings estimates;
• Analyst ratings;
• Investor sentiments.

The data is available in various organizations, e.g., time-series, and tables. Their databases include US stock prices, US stock fundamentals, financial ratios, global stock market data, etc. Sign-up for their APIs.

How to manage the mobile backend for the investment app

I have addressed the mobile front-end and APIs for key functions above. However, you also need to address the mobile backend. You can develop the mobile backend and manage everything, including the infrastructure. However, it’s time-consuming.

I recommend using an MBaaS provider. They manage key aspects of the mobile backend, e.g.:

• Infrastructure;
• Database;
• Persistent storage;
• Security;
• User management;
• API integration;

This enables you to focus on the front-end and key business functionalities, therefore, you can get a better ‘Time to market’. There are several MBaaS vendors like AWS for Mobile, Google Firebase, Kinvey, etc. You can consult our comparison guide “How to choose the best mobile backend as a service (MBaaS)?” for more details.

Investment app development: Important tools

I recommend you use effective tools for this end-to-end investment app development project. You should consider a good test automation tool. There are many such reputed tools. ‘TestComplete’ is a good choice.

A mobile app is a ‘System of Engagement’ (SoE). Such applications undergo frequent updates and enhancements. You need a good tool to seamlessly manage build and deployment. There are quite a few such tools, for e.g., ‘Maven’ is a reputed tool for this.

A project team for the mobile investment app development project

SoEs require iterative development; therefore, ‘Agile’ is a good project management methodology for projects like mobile investing apps. You should build an Agile team for this project. Consider our guide “How to build an Agile development team” for more details.

You need to assemble a team with the following skills:

• Business analysts;
• UI/UX designers;
• iOS developers;
• Android developers;

You also need a competent project manager (PM), who should know project management best practices. While I recommend that you co-locate your team, sometimes you may need to work with a remote team. The PM should know how to manage a remote team. Our guide, “10 essential tips to managing remote employees” can help.

Project management approach for investment app development

‘Scrum’ is a well-known iterative development technique within the larger body of Agile methodology. I recommend this technique for developing investment apps. The PM acts as a ‘Scrum master’, whereas a ‘Product owner’ (PO) provides the features or requirements in a document called the ‘Product backlog’.

The scrum team estimates the features, and the scrum master plans ‘Sprints’, i.e., iterations based on this estimation. The team first builds the ‘Minimum Viable Product’ (MVP) and then enhances it in further sprints. During the project execution, the scrum team conducts a ‘Daily stand-up meeting’. This meeting is to discuss the project status; additionally, the scrum master uses it to resolve issues.

When the features are ready, the scrum team conducts a ‘Sprint review meeting’. Features are demonstrated in this meeting, which enables the project stakeholders to approve them. The team also conducts a lessons-learned exercise, and it’s called the ‘Sprint retrospective meeting’. You can find more information about this technique in our guide “How to build a Scrum development team”.

You should also consider effective project management tools for the investment app project. Zoho is a good option. You can find more choices for PM tools in our guide, “The 10 best Agile project management tools”.

The investment app development cost

MBaaS providers display their prices on their websites. You need to contact the API providers to get their pricing plans. You also incur the development manpower cost, which depends on your requirements and the labor rate in your local labor market.

Since creating investment apps is an end-to-end development project, you may need professional help if you don’t have access to a skilled development team and a PM. Our guide, “How to find the best software development company?” can help you find a good development partner.

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Frequently Asked Questions on Investment Apps