The idea for the development of HERO Application by Finansia Syrus Securities started in 2017 during a period when the Thai capital market started to experience rapid growth in online trading. Despite the high growth, at that time there was only a single efficient online trading application available to the 1 million plus Thai retail investors. This legacy application, used by almost all brokers, was provided by a subsidiary of the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) and utilized an outdated technology. As such, the Thai retail investors had no alternatives and were deprived of the benefits that technology could offer as elsewhere in overseas markets.
At the same time, we heard of specialized online discount brokers disrupting the markets worldwide by deploying its digital model and integrated trading platform. Such competition began to make appearances in Asia and we anticipated that it was a matter of time before entering Thailand (whose trading value exceeds SGX). It was under such circumstances, that Finansia Syrus Securities, whose core business is centered upon retail brokerage and corporate finance, had to make a crucial decision: to transform or not to transform. The answer was simple as a refusal would ensure stagnation and decline.
So, at the direction of the Board of Directors, the management team made exploratory missions to search for a suitable technological partner and, after dozens of door openings, concluded in signing of a cooperation agreement with Daou Techonology of Korea, in January 2017. Daou’s technological advancement has already propelled Kiwoom Securities (its broker subsidiary) to the forefront of the Korean capital market. The Cooperation entails Finansia’s usage of Daou’s core trading engine to develop and design a trading application with selected features customized for the Thai market. The joint design & development process took over a year and a soft launch was made in beginning of 2018. HERO App immediately ran into teething problems, due to the rush to market, and was coldly received due to lack of sufficient user’s inputs.
Finansia Syrus immediately recognized the short comings, and its internal development team began an intensive 6 months market interviews and UX/UI analysis to redesign the screen with focus on features most demanded by investors. After re-launching of the new mobile version in mid-2019, together with a strong digital marketing and investors training campaign online and offline, the number of investors utilizing the HERO application began to grow steadily and became exponential by mid-2020.
The growth was quickened by the positive opinions and influencers’ reviews on the various investors social platforms. The key features that attributed to HERO’s popularity are:
HERO Real-time Pick: The only application in Thailand that was made according to customers demand, and which provides real-time stocks recommendations along with profit-taking and cut-loss targets with up to 61% accuracy through back test.
Sophisticated Auto order’s (Eg. Trailing Stop function) to help monitor stock trading prices and send orders automatically up to 6 months in advance. A sample include when investors want to sell stocks, the target selling price will continue to move beyond the original target level as long as the share price continues to go up, and recommending a sale only when there are signs of a resistance, enabling more profits for the investors.
The only platform in Thailand that combine data and trading functions in a single application. The application combines real-time scanners based on fundamental and technical analysis together with the ability to send orders quickly.
The impact of HERO application was not just for the benefits of Finansia Syrus and its customers. Brokers and local tech vendors were spurred to undertake developments of their own to compete with HERO. Both indigenous and foreign technologies have now been introduced, creating more choices for the Thai retail investors.
The success of “HERO Application”
A year after launching new mobile version Finansia Syrus Securities Public Company Limited emerged as an award winner in the 2021 International Finance Awards for “Most Innovative New Trading Application – Finansia HERO MTS – Thailand – 2021”. The official announcement was made by in September 2021. Furthermore, Finansia’s online accounts openings are growing rapidly since the introduction of Finansia HERO in 2020 with over 163,000 users and 610,000 downloads by end year 2021 showing the main generation of customers are both Gen X and Gen Y.
The most critical key factors are the vision and strategic planning. Finansia Syrus have been focusing on the digital and technology investment. The business models of traditional i.e. marketing officers facilitate the stock recommendation and order sending has been run parallel with online platform i.e. do it by yourself, though the accelerated growth of new model has been much faster. It reveals not only by the number of users but also the trading volume and commission which jump up over 4,000% for the past 4 years. Consequently, Finansia Syrus is able to maintain ranking among top 3 brokers in Thailand since 2019, mentioned by Chuangchai Nawongs, CEO of Finansia Syrus Securities.
In addition, “One stop service” business model is a “must-have” strategy in order to have a sustainable online expansion, said Nusara Rooncharoen, Executive Director, E-Business Marketing and Sales. As mentioned above, the majority of customers are new to stock trading investment, the journey after online account opening is to provide Finansia HERO’s features guideline and techniques with easy understanding and practical when using. Besides the continuing features development, Finansia Syrus has focused on other integrated services such as data analyze on customer trading behavior, AI Chabot for 24/7 communication, and brand royalty formation via online IPO campaign. Finansia Syrus Securities is one of the most active IPO house with a reputation for high quality issues. We are the only broker which our retail customers, either active trading or long-term investors, are able to subscript for IPO stock.
Next step of “HERO Application”
After being successful in stock trading platform, Finansia Syrus’ s next main objective is to make crypto currencies trading available to investors. We plan to set up a brokerage in Thailand and link to both onshore and offshore exchanges in order to get the best quotation and execution for our clients. We will also be able to provide trading support in Baht Fiat. We also expect to leverage on own strong investment banking capabilities to commence an ICO Portal business to list our clients’ tokens. Trading with us will make Cash and portfolio management more convenient. We believe we can customize the UI of crypto trading platform to suit the requirements of our client’s behavior of equities and their preferences. With all of these possibilities, we finally aim to integrate these new businesses as parts of HERO application.