CoinSwitch plans to enter stock trading market amid competition

Crypto trading platform, CoinSwitch has planned to enter the Indian Stock Trading market. This comes at a time when the trading market is operated majorly by new-age players like Zerodha, Groww, Upstox and Paytm Money. According to SEBI, any company planning to enter the trading niche is required to obtain a license and CoinSwitch has planned to initiate the same.

"Our vision for CoinSwitch has always been to develop it into a wealth tech platform tailored specifically for Indians. Our mission statement—Make Money Equal for All—speaks to this goal. We embarked on this journey by focusing on crypto, recognising India as a young and digitally inclined nation," Ashish Singhal, Co-Founder and CEO, CoinSwitch told Republic.

"Currently, just about 3.2 per cent of Indians actively invest in equities, and the participation rate in mutual funds is also low. To enable true economic participation in India, it is crucial to significantly increase retail involvement in the financial markets. Our goal is to bridge this gap, empowering Indians to invest and accumulate wealth. To achieve this, we have extensively scaled our technology infrastructure and have brought industry experts on board to strengthen our leadership team," Ashish adds.

"The entry of Coin Switch into the stock trading space has the potential to drive increased innovation and improvements in the industry. Companies will likely strive to differentiate themselves and attract customers, leading to the introduction of new features or technologies in both stock trading and crypto," Edul Patel, Co-founder and CEO, Mudrex told Republic.

According to media reports, CoinSwitch had plans to offer trading and investments in US Stocks. Unfortunately, the company couldn't roll out the same because of the recent changes proposed by the Finance Ministry in the Liberalised Tax Remittance Scheme. This led CoinSwitch to think differently and turn to the Indian Stock trading business. 

Amid high volatility in the stock market, every trading platform operating in India is striving hard to gain the necessary user support and demands from consumers. Companies try hard to develop a sense of investing in equities through various measures. Big names in the trading sector like Zerodha and Upstox have reported a loss in consumer base leading to less revenue than expected.

The Cryptomarket in India has gained good traction in the last couple of years. CoinSwitch which is a Bengaluru-based company funded by Tiger Global and Andressen Horowitz has made its market since 2017. Shifting focus on financial instruments and especially stocks is a well-planned and strategic move to diversify the services. This will further multiply the revenue streams and the user's interest in opting for the services. The startup has raised nearly $300 million so far, with its latest being $260 million in October 2021 according to media reports.