What’s causing the online trading platform market to grow?

The online trading platform market witnessed widespread growth in 2020, and analysts project the market will grow at a CAGR of 5.1% during the forecast period, 2021-2028. Online trading platforms are powerful tools that give traders greater control over their finances, and recent trends like advanced charting tools, user customisation, and low-latency trading solutions have propelled the online trading marketplace to new heights. The ability to trade multiple instruments like shares and commodities from the same platform has also increased the market’s value.

It’s all about the number of trading options

In particular, contract for difference (CFD) trading has helped the online trading industry grow for the above-mentioned reasons. With CFD trading platforms, users get access to fast executed trades and customisation, where they can decide to trade in either rising or falling markets. Users can access these markets outside of traditional trading hours; CFD trading also allows individuals to execute trades on a range of instruments from their phone, desktop, or tablet. For example, individuals can buy Amazon stock on platforms like Skilling, a trading platform that offers 24/5 trading and access to fractional shares, while also trading indices, commodities, and cryptocurrencies on the platform at the same time. As a global brand, Amazon has a considerable online presence, and this doesn’t look to change anytime soon.

Mobile devices are beating desktops

The transition from desktop trading to mobile trading is also one reason the online trading market grew to around $8 billion in 2021 and is forecasted to hit $12 billion by 2028. Integrated trading platforms on smartphones has led to more financial freedom, and increased mobile penetration in the developing world has allowed it to see improvements in its financial sector. For example, shipments of smartphones to Africa grew around 13% in the second quarter of 2021, increasing the continent’s total number of devices to over 20 million. It’s for these reasons Sub-Saharan Africa’s mobile money market has been one of the world’s fastest-growing industries over the last ten years. 

The history of financial trading is fascinating. The stock market’s origins date back to 1602 when the Dutch East India Company released company shares on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange to become the world’s first publicly-traded company. As for electronic trading, its story is still relatively new, with the first electronic stock exchange, the Nasdaq Exchange, not hitting the market until the 1970s, followed by platforms like Globex in 1992. Since then, however, the growth of electronic trading has been significant, and many new branches have formed, including mobile trading.

Features like user customisation and advanced charting tools have made financial trading easier for beginners and experts alike. The introduction of mobile CFD trading platforms has also allowed the online trading marketplace to see impressive figures in recent years. That is not entirely surprising, though, considering we live in a society that values freedom, choice, and the ability to do something from wherever, whenever. Mobile CFD trading meets all of these needs; this is why we are seeing its influence in not just the developed world but developing countries as well, such as Nigeria and Kenya.