The finance sector has made the most of modern technologies. With the advancement in technologies, various finance apps have been introduced to users who are making a positive impact in managing their financials. Earlier, you either have to visit the bank physically and withdraw money manually; now, you can just transfer as much as you want to anyone within few seconds with the help of your online finance app. A number of things are now simplified with the help of ultra-modern technology, and making investments has never been easy as it is now with these investment apps like Acorns.
With the evolution of the Fintech industry, we are more aware of numerous options of investments that are available in the market. The banks and various finance companies are using these investment apps like Acorns to enhance their relationships with customers. However, the investment sector is somehow untouched by many giants of the finance industry, and now that people are aware of the benefits of investments, there is a sudden rise in the numbers of investment app development. Several entrepreneurs are now more than interested in developing an investment app as they have realized it has a promising future in terms of usability and handsome revenue figures. One such best investment app is Acorns. It delivers the exact functionality the users are looking for. Let’s get to know about Acorns.
What is Acorns?
Acorns is one of the top investing apps. It has been popular as it is designed to introduce beginner investors to invest with a simplified approach. Acorns have invented an intriguing system known as round-ups. Users can add their various credit and debit cards in their account on Acorns, and when there is an odd number of expenditures, suppose you spent 5.57 US dollars on anything, Acorn will automatically reserve the remaining amount of 0.43 US dollars for investing. It’s like you are investing with your spare change. However, the results are quite amazing, and the users are finding it easy to use and feasible.
Apart from adhering to all the guidelines of US rules and regulations, Acorns delivers a four-year free period of investing for the students. With its round-up system, you never have to worry about saving some extra bucks for investing. It automatically does it for you. Acorns is among the top investment apps because it offers a checking account with a debit card and uses 256-bit encryption to deliver ultimate security. Taking it further, it doesn’t store any data on the user’s device.
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How Do Acorns Work?
Acorns is considered as the best investment app in the market because of the functionality and ergonomic features it delivers to its audience. With an app like Acorns, you can add as many credit and debit cards you like to your account, and it will round up each transaction that will take place through your debit or credit cards and later use that round-off amount for the purpose of investment.
There are options to set up your monthly or daily investment deposits; apart from the investment, the app delivers cashback and referrals. In terms of feasibility, Acorns will keep account of every penny spent and fuel your investments. Acorns offer an investment portfolio with six ETF, including emerging markets, real estate, small-cap, etc. The app will ask about your favorite field to invest in at the starting of the app and plan your investment accordingly. Acorns levies a feed of one US dollar per month to use its services, and users are happy to pay it as the returns are far greater than the investment.
Must-Have Features in an Investment App Like Acorns
Features are the bloodline of any investment app. It is always best to integrate ultra-modern features in your investment app development to stay with the trend and attract a huge user base. Features will decide the app’s overall functionality; hence, make sure to hire a reputed investment app development company with great ratings and feedback to develop your investment app. However, there are various features that are common in all the app development process, such as signup, profile building, push notifications, etc. Here are some of the most ergonomic features of any best investment app.
Smart Deposits: Your investment app should have a smart deposits feature that will allow users to automatically allocate a portion of their monthly earnings into their investment account. A majority of users find this useful as they sometimes forget to fill up their investment amount.
Scheduled Deposits: With this smart feature, users can set their recurring investments as daily, weekly or monthly. This feature will help your app grow and become popular in the long run as there is nothing greater than ease of access.
Learn Section: Best investment apps like Acorns have this feature integrated into them. This feature allows users to access an education section that delivers them extensive knowledge about investment glossary, FAQs, and other things. This feature will help in building a great trustful relationship with your user base.
Worldwide Updates: Investments are subjected to a number of market risks, and users should be aware of every fact. This section will allow your users to get an idea of the market trends and analyze the performance of any particular stock. This section also includes interviews, news, and how-tos within the app.
Acorns Round-Up Feature: If you want to develop an investment app like Acorns, it is only logical to have similar features. You can integrate a round-up feature like Acorns in your project. It will round up the expenditure of your users and save the remainder for investment purposes.
Round-Up Multiplier: To take this feature to the next level, you can introduce a multiplier that will allow the users to multiply the extra investment by two, three, and so on.
Earn Feature: Apart from investing, your user base should have a little fun. Integrate an earning feature in your app that will serve the purpose of giving rewards to your users whenever they spend on a particular stock or any particular commodity.
Investment App Development Process
To develop an investment app, you have to follow a tedious process and implement a flawless road map that you will design during the process. The first step involves a thorough planning. Without a plan, you can’t develop an investment app of your expectations that will someday be on the list of top investing apps. At this initial stage, you need to decide the number of ETFs you will include in your app and measure the features and functions you are willing to deliver to your user base. Along with the functions, you should also examine the financial risks that you are willing to take for your investment app like Acorns. If you like, you can get in touch with your trusted financial advisor at this point.
The next step involves conducting diligent market research that will assist you in carving out your functional road map. It is always mandatory to know about your competitors and their strategies about the investment market and user base in any app development. Market research will tell you about the trends of the investment market and the expectations of the users from any new app. It is better to know the expectations of your user base beforehand so that you can implement the desired features accordingly and save a ton of time and money.
After you have gathered all the data from your research, move towards the next step, where you will crave a functional road map for your investment app development process. Online investment is a lot better and complicated than offline investment, where you have brokers to advise you for the next step. There are robot advisors connected to the servers that deliver all the information about any stocks and guides the users in the online investment market. You need to sketch out the whole process to create a flawless online investment app.
Now that you have a sketch ready for your further process, you can proceed further with the list of features that you will integrate into your app. We recommend integrating the features as per the user’s expectations and the current market data. However, you should consider including an SSL certificate to make sure no fraudulent practices occur while the user is operating your app. Also, integrate 256-bit encryption for security and dd a two-factor authentication for login. Users should be able to choose the investment options. Investments apps like Acorns have the feature of round-up that is taking the investment app user base by storm; make sure to integrate that in your app along with a financial planner or a virtual trainer for ease of access.
At this stage, you will have an outline of your investment app. To make a handsome profit from your app, you should think of a feasible business model that will earn your app a fair share of the revenue. After deciding the business model, you can move towards the development and testing phase. Always make sure to hire a reputed investment app development company that has the qualified resources.
Technologies to Consider
The investment app development process requires a ton of technologies and APIs to ease the functionality of the app. The technology stack plays a significant role in the development process as investments are subject to real-time updates, and users will require a ton of information related to various commodities and services. To make your investing app flawless, you should always go for the best-in-class set of technologies that deliver feasibility and ease of access to the users.
Top investing apps like Acorns uses a various set of technologies as for the purpose of database and applications which includes language and frameworks they use JavaScript, React, PostgreSQL, Bootstrap, Redis, Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, Ruby, Android SDK, Amazon CloudFront, Rails, Swift, Scala, Kotlin, Apache Spark, D3.js, Polymer, etc.
To serve the purpose of DevOps, these apps use GitHub, Docker, Sublime Text, Vim, New Relic, Grafana, Amazon EC2 Container Service, Amazon CloudWatch, Travis CI, etc.
APIs are an important aspect of the investment app development process and ease the functionality of the app. You have to integrate various APIs in your investment app like Acorns. There are various APIs that are used by the top investment apps in the markets, some of those APIs are Yahoo Finance API, Alpha Vantage API, Stock and Options Trading Data Provider API, Investing Cryptocurrency Markets API, Zirra API, Twelve Data API, Finage Currency Data Feed API, Plaid API to connect bank accounts, Xignite Market Data Feed and API, Ally Invest APIs, Quandl API for stock data, and much more.
Monetization Models to Consider
The fintech industry never fails to surprise us with its new and alluring business models. Since the financial sector knows how to spin the money to gain some profit, your app should also have an effective business model to make money. Revenue generation is an important aspect of developing an app, and there are various monetization models available in the market that best investment apps use, such as:
Subscriptions: Users will pay your app to use its services for a definite period. You can revamp this model by adding various perks and benefits to each category of the subscription plan.
Freemium: The most modern form of business model is Freemium, where you deliver a set of functions and features to your user base for free and later ask for a fee to get the extended and better version of that free feature. You can also add various financial guides in the paid category.
Sponsorships: You can always get to the brands to promote their products related to your genre and charge them for displaying their ads on your platform or pitching their stock or products to your users. You can also run a promotion with their coupon code where your users will get a discount on the sponsor’s website.
In-app purchases: Users love to purchase new things, whether it’s in the app or out of the app. You can always add some of your premium features and functions in the paid category and ask a fee from your users to use that particular feature.
Requirements & Cost to Develop an Investment App
The investment app development process is considered to be iterative as it has so many factors to test and implement to get a flawless app. Therefore, to develop such an app, you will require a sturdy team with qualified experience and valuable ratings. In order to gather the perfect results, it is always recommended to hire a full-fledged investment app development company as they have a highly skilled team of mobile app developers with a ton of experience and knowledge of the modern technology stack.
To develop an investment app, you will require a generic team app development team that will consist of Business analysts, UI/UX designers, iOS/Android developers, QA, and testing engineers. Please make sure to check the qualities of the team. Since development is a tedious process, your project manager should be able to handle the project and the team with his best project management practices.
The cost involved in the development of your investment app like Acorns will depend on a variety of factors. Every single factor and feature of your app has the capability to fluctuate the cost of development. The number of features you want to integrate into your app will affect the cost of your investment app development. To facilitate great functions to your users, you’ll need a set of APIs that will drive the cost of your project. In conclusion, you can only get an exact idea of the development cost from your investment app development company after discussing your exact requirements.
Also Read- Financial Software Development: A Complete Guide for Businesses
The Bottomline
High rates of internet penetration play a great role in the enormous user base the internet has gathered in the last few years. Users are now aware of all the changes and trends in the market of various genres. The fintech industry is on the rise, and the evolution of technology has made investment fun and easy for everyone. Top investing apps Like Acorns have been appreciated by the users as they have made online investing extremely easy.
The Fintech market is full of massive opportunities with a ton of room for a new online investment app. Matellio can assist you in the development of your investment app. We have a team of qualified and highly skilled engineers with vast professional experience in the investment sector. Our engineers are aware of every fact and trend of the investment sector. Our high client retention rate describes our developed apps’ quality that has a great rating and excellent feedback. Book a call with our experts today and start with your investment app development process today!
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