The Story Of Geojit BNP Paribas' FLIP

Vision is what outlines the future. Almost a decade before now, in the year 2000, Geojit BNP Paribas introduced online trading. The retail player in the financial services space realised back then itself the importance of going online. It was one of the first few companies in its genre to develop a Web presence. “We bought an online trading solution from NSIT for meeting our requirements. The solution, at that time, seemed good enough as we were not dealing in many products,” says A Balakrishnan, Managing Director, Geojit Technologies, a subsidiary of Geojit BNP Paribas.

However, as it is said, what goes up comes down. The solution was a successful story for the company till they decided to expand. The solution did not support the addition of more products to their portfolio either effectively or efficiently. “We decided we wanted to deal not just in cash but also in equities, derivatives (stock and currency), margin funding, mutual funds, so on and so forth. However, the solution wasn’t equipped to deal with so many products,” says Balakrishnan. They also needed a comprehensive ordering system.

So, the saviour of yester years had now taken on the role of a villain within the company and was hindering its growth in some ways. Balakrishnan says, “The solution was neither multi-tiered nor scalable enough to meet our needs. Risk management also was an issue that wasn’t addressed the way we wanted it to be. With the advancement of technology and the Internet, the risks kept rising”.

As rightly said by Tim Bajarin, an American technology columnist, ‘In the digital age, it’s all about personalisation and customisation’. The solution that the company had was stopping them from doing exactly this, so the management decided it was time to move on.

Move on, IT is changing fast

By 2006, it was decided that they will have to bring in new technology. “It was at that juncture that we decided we did not really want another solution to replace this one. To ensure that all our needs were addressed, we realised we would have to develop a new solution from scratch tailored to our requirements,” says Balakrishnan.

This was how the idea of FLIP took birth. It took around three years and a team of 30 people to develop this product. “We started the experiment and it was a trial-and-error process for most part of the journey. My team and I spent a good part of those three years in the labs,” says Balakrishnan.

What was developed was FLIP, an online investment solution that incorporates a full-fledged ‘Order Management System’ with built-in, multi-level security risk management and real-time streaming of market data. FLIP seamlessly integrates with the Risk Management System to offer a complete array of financial instruments such as equities, derivatives (stock and currency), margin funding, mutual fund units and IPOs for a smooth and rich investment experience.

New shores outside the company

Ask about the USP of his product and Balakrishnan says, “Some of the advanced features of FLIP are an advanced configurable workspace, multi-market watch in a single screen, simultaneous tracking of up to nine scrips by market/ price/ charts in a single screen, monitoring of six sectors in a single window with customisable fields and cross exchange ‘Market by Price’ that helps trace NSE/ BSE price movements etc”. Comprehensive support tools such as regular research reports, technical analysis and trading ideas from a team of experts are also available.

Apart from Indian stock exchanges, the stock exchanges of Saudi Arabia and Oman have already empanelled this solution. The solution is now also being offered to other companies by Geojit BNP Paribas.

Ravi Narain, MD & CEO, NSE, about the growing community of Independent Software Solution Providers (ISSP) says, “ISSPs are now becoming the landmark of the Indian continent. They are the future and NSE encourages this community whole-heartedly. Although the online trading market is around 15-20 percent, it is bound to increase in the coming years. This will make these providers extremely significant”.