I'm excited to write this blog as a part of our annual tradition. If last year was a transformative year, 2024 has been a year of more significant changes, both for the brokerage industry and most definitely for us. It's been an intense year as we've worked hard to introduce many useful features, several of which are unique for traders and investors in India. This is going to be a rather long post because I'm trying to summarize the entire year's action all at once, so please bear with me :).
Let's begin with some of the most notable highlights for you in no particular order:
1. Smart Orders
Order execution and timing are the difference between winners and losers. During the lockdown years, it was possible for people to sit in front of a computer and trade all day, but things are different now. After the world went back to WFO, it became harder to keep track of trades, and it surely resulted in losses for innumerable traders.
To help improve outcomes, we introduced Smart Orders, which help with pre-configuring trade preferences. This vastly improves traders' ability to control risk, limit losses, and retain profits when you're unable to pay full attention to the markets. I'd love you to read this post to gain deeper insights into the different use cases for Smart Orders.
Smart Step helps to simplify averaging like never before.
Smart Trail helps you lock in your profits by trailing your stop-loss in profitable positions.
Smart Limit gives you more control over the order execution price by allowing you to set a timer for your limit orders and also conversion to market orders after time expiry.
It's a very useful feature for anyone who wants to buy stocks at a reasonable price but can't use the trading app all day.
2. Smart Exit
The above-mentioned Smart Orders are mostly useful for configuring and managing individual positions, whereas Smart Exit helps you effectively manage portfolio-level risk by allowing you to configure the maximum tolerable loss you'd want to restrict your portfolio to and the level of profit at which you'd exit positions.
You can use this to flatten your portfolio when it is positive or negative, depending on your maximum tolerance for risk on the downside and your maximum appetite for profits. It’s extremely useful for traders who typically have more than 3–5 positions in their trading portfolio.
3. Quick Trade
Scalpers require quicker order execution for fast entry and exits! Most traders find it cumbersome to enter their preferred order type, the number of lots, and other parameters each time, thereby wasting valuable time.
We introduced Quick Trade to solve this and make order entry and exits faster. This includes predefined profit target and SL configurations, a feature loved by all kinds of day traders. For more information, read this blog post.
4. Options Scalper Terminal
Speaking of scalping, this one is a game-changer for options scalpers—a terminal specifically designed for fast-action options trading. The user experience was curated keeping in mind that the options trader is burdened with multiple data points, charts, and other elements, which can get overwhelming during a trading day.
To solve this, we introduced a focused view with three charts: the center chart is of the underlying instrument, with the call option of the same strike price and put option on either side. Additionally, a fixed option chain with an intuitive inward scroll helps to compare various metrics across calls and puts seamlessly.
This, combined with the previous feature, Quick Trade, makes for a great combo for traders. Besides that, to make order execution, entries, and exits even more efficient, we introduced shortcut keys and partial exits for better position sizing and money management. You should check this out if you're into options trading. For more info about the Scalper Terminal, read this post.
5. Margin Trading Facility (MTF)
We introduced the much-awaited Margin Trading Facility (MTF), a product tailored for positional traders and opportunistic short-term investors. With this, you can trade with 4x your capital in the equity delivery segment.
While MTF is offered by many traditional brokerages and some new-age ones, we go the extra mile to give you something more! You can use Good Till Traded (GTT) orders for MTF. This helps you enter and exit stocks based on your predefined entry, target, and stop-loss parameters.
We offer MTF limits of up to ₹25 lacs per client, with which one can trade any number of stocks. We also offer 900+ stocks for MTF, higher than the industry average. Perhaps the most unique feature of our MTF suite is Smart SIP, which I will discuss in the subsequent point. For more information about MTF, read this post.
6. Smart SIP
SIPs are mainstream for mutual funds, but not for stocks. We felt that SIPs can also be used for trading, not just MF investing. Instead of limiting the periodicity to one month, we offer shorter timeframes such as one day, one week, and also one month for more flexibility.
Additionally, you can set a timer for expiry and a limit price to execute SIP orders to reduce your buy average prices. The best part is that you can accumulate stocks via Smart SIP by leveraging your trading capital with MTF. This gives you great flexibility and buying power to capitalize on momentum, turnarounds, and other special situations by spreading out your purchases while maximizing profit potential—another unique feature among trading platforms in India.
7. Instant Withdrawals
To cater to the urgent financial needs of customers who have idle cash lying with us, we introduced instant withdrawals, enabling us to process withdrawal payments of up to ₹1 lakh in 60 seconds. There are some terms and conditions because of the way the back-end infrastructure and fund operations work. Learn more about it here. Apart from that overall over ₹10k Cr. was transferred through our platform.
8. Screeners
Discovering opportunities has always been a haphazard experience for retail traders and investors. Jumping from one website to another isn't worth it, especially when they're riddled with spammy ads and coercive UX. The journey of trying to find timely trading opportunities can be mentally exhausting.
We've wanted to help make this process more efficient for a long time, and this year, we kickstarted it with our Technical Screener, which offers 100+ screeners across price, volume, indicators, chart patterns, and more.
What's most useful is that we provide results across intraday and positional timeframes. This is a powerful module for anyone looking to curate a specific watchlist or take instant trades based on insights gained from our screeners. Every trader should check this out.
9. Brand Search
Early in 2024, we introduced a brand search feature called Smart Symbol Search. It helps you find companies that own the brands you want to invest in. For example, search for "Maggi" and find "Nestle," or search for other popular brands to discover their parent companies. On aggregate, our customers search for 80 symbols every minute and have searched this feature has been used over 6 crore times across all our users since the launch.
10. Sell Holdings Without Unpledging
Traditionally, pledged collateral had to be unpledged before selling. While this made sense, it often resulted in an opportunity cost for active traders who wanted to react to market movements in real time but had to endure a one-day latency for unpledging. We resolved this! Now, you can sell pledged collateral on NCL without disrupting your trade flow. This feature addresses a couple of use cases:
It helps reduce losses if the price of the collateral falls.
Upon selling your collaterals, the margins are released immediately, enabling you to use them for intraday equity margin requirements or even for the commodity segment after equity markets close. Read more about it here. This and other conveniences helped enhance the number of clients who have holdings with us by 50% this year.
11. Scheduling Bank Mandates
Running account settlements are a great regulatory measure to safeguard customer funds by reducing the quantum of idle funds lying with brokers. However, active traders often find it cumbersome to manually add funds every time they’re settled back to their linked bank account(s).
To make this easier, we now allow customers to schedule bank mandates to transfer the desired amount directly to their FYERS account. This helps avoid delays, ensuring the money is available when you need it most for trading opportunities. We'll write a separate post about this soon.
12. TradingView Integration
We became one of the first brokerages in India to tightly integrate with TradingView in a way that allows clients to trade directly on the platform. We also introduced options trading on TradingView. If you're a fan of the platform and prefer to trade there, or enjoy TradingView's features, read this post for more information.
13. Market Price Protection (MPP)
Previously, BSE lacked Market Price Protection (MPP) to safeguard traders from freak trades, which caused havoc in OTM contracts in recent years. We introduced this feature to better mitigate risks for traders executing market orders instead of limit orders. You can read more about it here.
14. Demat Debit & Pledge Instruction (DDPI)
We swiftly transitioned from the E-DIS system to DDPI to make life easier for clients. This new mechanism eliminates the cumbersome OTP validation for sell trades. The DDPI system also enhances the MTF process. The seamless changeover has helped countless clients avoid hassles. You can read about it here.
15. Enhanced Charting
We are India’s only brokerage platform to provide charting timeframes starting from 5 seconds onwards. These ultra-short-duration charts are particularly useful for semi-professional and professional day traders who want to analyze price action under a magnifying glass.
Additionally, we added Volume Candles to our charting library and implemented alerts from charts, significantly enhancing the trading experience. We also introduced trading functionality directly from mobile app charts, making the process more seamless. Overall, our charting experience has seen substantial improvements compared to last year.
16. 200 Symbols per Watchlist
We increased the symbol limit per watchlist from 50 to 200, the highest ever. This change helps traders track a broader range of stocks, such as those in indices like NIFTY 200 or customized watchlists across asset classes, including F&O. Despite the expansion, we maintained the speed of streaming real-time prices, offering traders greater flexibility without compromising performance.
17. API Improvements
We introduced API Version 3 with several upgrades, including reducing order latency to 10 milliseconds, making it approximately 5x faster than the average trading platform in India. Our WebSocket can now handle up to 5,000 symbols, further enhancing the capabilities for algo traders. Additionally, we launched an Options Chain API, enabling traders to create, monitor, and execute strategies more efficiently. Our free APIs, which provide real-time data, historical data, trading, and risk management capabilities, remain free—offering a significant value proposition, especially considering the cost of data in the industry. Our history APIs were hit 700 Cr. times during the year by users across all timeframes.
18. Status Dashboard
This year, we also introduced Status Dashboard, an initiative to enhance uptime transparency for our clients. This page provides near real-time updates on the operational status of our platform, including market connectivity, order execution systems, and other critical services. By offering this level of visibility, we aim to build trust and ensure users are always informed about any disruptions or maintenance activities. Learn more about it here.
19. Take a Break / Kill Switch
Last but not least, we introduced the Take a Break feature, popularly known as the "Kill Switch." This mental well-being tool helps traders avoid overtrading, which can be a significant challenge, especially during emotionally charged trading sessions.
Trading is a discipline best performed with minimal emotion. However, recognizing that not everyone has the same level of emotional resilience, this feature lets traders temporarily pause their activity to avoid impulsive decisions. Additionally, our Smart Exit feature complements this by enabling users to lock in profits and limit losses by exiting all positions based on predefined levels.
Beyond Features: Diversifying into Asset Management
Beyond our work for retail traders and investors, we diversified into asset management by acquiring a SEBI Portfolio Management Services (PMS) license. This service is designed for investors with patient capital of at least ₹50 lakhs and a high-risk appetite. This step marks another leap in our journey as we continue to expand our offerings to meet diverse financial needs.
Recognitions and Achievements
Our efforts this year were acknowledged by several accolades:
ET Entrepreneur Awards – Bootstrapped Startup of the Year.
Entrepreneur Awards – Resilient Entrepreneur of the Year.
Entrepreneur Awards - Best Bootstrapped Business of the Year 2024
MCX Awards – Leading Member - Client Participation.
Great Place to Work – Recognized for creating a healthy, collaborative workplace.
Giving Back: FYERS Foundation
Amid our hectic work schedules, we turned our long-standing desire to make a positive impact in society into reality by establishing the FYERS Foundation!
Through the foundation, we aim to contribute directly to the trading and investing community, and our surroundings particularly in Namma Bengaluru, the city we love and call home. Previously, we have contributed to important causes like the Swachh Bharat Mission. However, this year, we initiated several charitable activities, such as:
Awareness drive regarding Online Frauds - We tied up with the Bengaluru Police to educate the public about the rampant fraudulent malpractices by charlatans who attempt to loot innocent people of their hard earned savings using increasingly deceitful tricks.
Law enforcement support - We helped with improving Crime Police's infrastructure In certain parts of the city and accessorizing the Traffic Police with our humble contributions to help increase effectiveness to some extent.
Inclusivity - We've resolved to help the underprivileged, orphaned and destitute members of our society and trying to make the best possible impact in the activities we choose to contribute to.
Besides that, we did a blood donation drive in which our young team enthusiastically donated blood. It was fun and felt so purposeful to have a positive impact in unfortunate people's lives. We will share more about these initiatives soon, but the satisfaction of making a difference has been one of our most fulfilling achievements this year. Here are a few glimpses:
Looking Ahead to 2025
As we approach our 10th anniversary, we remain committed to delivering the best experience while helping you make better financial decisions. From the start, we made a deliberate choice to focus on active traders and investors, the people who live and breathe the markets. And it shows because about 20% of our clients log in every single day. For us, it’s all about serving the most engaged users, not just the most users.
On behalf of the entire FYERS team, I wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year! Thank you for choosing us as your preferred brokerage platform. Your patronage means a lot. We will continue striving to make your experience better with each passing year. If you don't yet have a FYERS account, now is a great time to get started.