Share.Market redefines the investment experience with Microsoft Azure

Share.Market is an investment and trading platform by PhonePe, a leading enterprise in the Indian digital payments and financial technology ecosystem. Headquartered in Bengaluru, India, Share.Market aims to revolutionize how India invests in the share market.

Need for an intelligent, intuitive investment platform

The rapidly expanding fintech ecosystem and the high-performing Indian financial markets offer immense potential to Indian investors to create wealth for themselves and the country. The solid digital public infrastructure built on a foundation of UPI, Aadhaar and eKYC has made it possible for Indians to seamlessly participate in the capital market. It has also reduced the cost of onboarding customers on wealth management platforms.

Recognizing the power of technology-driven, innovative, and cost-effective investment platforms, Share.Market aimed to empower retail investors and traders to participate in India’s economic growth, giving them the potential to build wealth in the long term and achieve their financial goals. In its endeavor to build a user-friendly investment platform, it aimed to simplify the trading journey of the user in the share market while ensuring safety and security. It wanted to create a scalable investment platform for discount broking that would deliver market intelligence, quantitative research-based products, and superior customer experience to investors and traders alike.

Its key requirements were scalability, high responsiveness, and flexibility. Following extensive research on technology solutions, Share.Market chose to build its investment platform on Microsoft Azure. Collaborating with Microsoft, it developed the application, utilizing Azure Cosmos DB as the database.

Pradeep Srinivasan, Architect, Share.Market, explains, “We aimed to build an innovative, scalable, and compliant investment platform. We sought a solution that could provide a secure environment and the flexibility to deliver features that would elevate the investor and trader experience.”

The primary features of the product are:

WealthBaskets – It offers curated baskets of stocks or investment products aligned with specific themes, sectors and market trends based on research by Share.Market’s SEBI-registered research arm. It enables novice investors to enter the market without requiring them to conduct extensive research.

Trading platform – Investors and traders can trade in multiple instruments such as stocks (intraday and delivery), mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

IPO analysis – It provides in-depth insights into upcoming initial public offerings (IPOs). The platform equips users with the information needed to make informed investment decisions, ensuring they stay ahead of market trends.

Collections – It leverages data-driven algorithms and implements a rigorous quantitative research process to facilitate the discovery of promising stocks and investment opportunities, enhancing the investment journey of its users.

Delivering scale, security, and responsiveness to Indian investors

Himanshu Sahu, Head of Engineering, Share.Market, says, “The partnership with Microsoft has allowed us to deliver a reliable, high-performance trading experience to our ever-growing user base. Microsoft Azure’s robust cloud services, particularly Cosmos DB, were instrumental in the rapid development and seamless scaling of Share.Market. Cosmos DB’s flexibility and low latency capabilities enable us to handle massive data volumes and unpredictable traffic patterns associated with financial markets.”

The robust technological foundation built on Microsoft Azure, Azure Cosmos DB, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud has allowed Share.Market to fulfil its commitment to providing a secure and seamless investment experience at scale.

The key benefits of the solution are:

Secure and scalable infrastructure – Microsoft Azure’s superior data centers and networking capabilities allow Share.Market to cater to a large user base. Azure Cosmos DB’s elastic scaling capabilities equip the platform to handle surges in traffic during peak market hours, major market events, or popular IPO launches and deliver a highly responsive experience to users at all times.

Elevated user experience – Azure’s suite of managed services allows Share.Market to deliver intuitive features that simplify the investment and wealth-management experience of customers. With Cosmos DB, the platform provides ultra-low latency and lightning-fast response times which is critical in the world of investments. Users can make timely decisions and execute transactions rapidly, maximizing their earning potential. With a flexible data model that allows for a performance-centric, design, Share.Market exceeds customer requirements.

Praveen Kumar, Architect, Share.Market, explains, “Azure Cosmos DB’s autoscale feature enables quick scaling up during traffic surges typical in stock broking. Multi-region data distribution and flexible consistency levels offer first-class support, allowing us to design the system based on our specific needs.”

Stability through disaster recovery – With robust geo-redundancy in India and disaster recovery (DR) capabilities, Share.Market provides unparalleled stability and uninterrupted service to users. Data is replicated across geographically separate regions, minimizing downtime and guaranteeing reliability during outages.

Innovating for more intelligence-driven and customized investment experiences

Share.Market aims to continue collaborating with Microsoft to innovate and empower users. It is exploring the usage of Microsoft Azure further to deliver more intelligent, data-driven investment and trading experiences. With a focus on customization and efficiency, Share.Market aspires to offer tailored insights and prompt, intelligent resolutions to user inquiries. Looking ahead, the team at Share.Market wants the product to evolve into a financial advisor, catering to the diverse needs of Indian investors, irrespective of their investment experience.