Forex broker OANDA has launched a new significant version of its trading mobile application. The new version, available for Android, iPhone and iPad, includes a totally new charting engine, which shows changes to charts on the fly. The charts never leave the screen.
OANDA iPad app – click image to enlarge
While some users would prefer having a big set of large screens, this application is certainly a leap forward, and makes mobile analyzing and trading much easier.
I had the chance to speak with Paul Hayward, Head of Sales EMEA, and Paul Robinson, Trading Applications Manager and they showed me some of the features. They said that OANDA sees trading moving more towards the mobile world. OANDA wishes to lead in innovation against the competitors, and is led by traders’ requests.
6 engineers worked on the application for a long period of time, and they put a lot of effort into making it fast, responsive and sleek. Inspiration for the design was taken from popular applications such as the Facebook and Twitter apps – from outside of the trading world.
Also the charting features were somewhat inspired by popular photo editing. The iPad version enables the users to have four charts. All timeframes apart from the weekly and monthly charts are available.
You can see an introductory video about the application here:
Push notifications are available for price alerts. These notifications are a significant part of a user’s mobile app experience. Notifications for news events aren’t available yet.
The team has a lot more features in the pipeline. In the meantime, anyone can download the app and begin demo trading quite easily. Opening a real account is not adapted for mobile apps at the moment.
More information about the new app is available in the press release below:
LONDON – MARCH 26, 2013 – OANDA, a global provider of innovative foreign exchange trading services, today announced a significant update to its OANDA fxTrade mobile applications for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices.
OANDA’s fxTrade mobile app allows users to quickly monitor forex market activity as well as manage positions, control risk, and monitor account status and profitability while on the go. The free app’s intuitive design makes the most of native iPhone, iPad, and Android capabilities to provide features that traders need to stay on top of the fast-moving forex market.
“We are excited to finally bring robust desktop trading functionality to the smartphone,” said Trevor Young, Senior Director of Product Management at OANDA. “In the past three years our clients have progressed from merely checking positions and prices with our mobile app to using it to plan and execute trades. As mobile continues to evolve as the go-to computing platform, OANDA will be at the forefront of mobile trading technology design with our commitment to provide the types of trading experiences our customers expect from a trusted forex innovator.”
Key features of this new version of OANDA’s fxTrade mobile app include:
- Advanced charting functionality that allows users to overlay various technical indicators for enhanced price-data analysis
- Customizable charts in a greater range of intervals (ranging from 5 seconds to 1 day)
- Full visibility into price action from a single screen, with continuous display of current prices even when manipulating chart parameters
- A sleek user interface that allows easier chart navigation, one-handed chart manipulation, scrolling trade history, and pinch-to-zoom capabilities
- Streaming news feeds from top providers such as Dow Jones, Thomson Reuters, 4Cast, and UBS Analysis (iPhone and Android only)
- Push notifications for limit orders, stop loss and take profit actions, margin notifications, and price alerts (price-alert notifications are not available on iPad)
Continuous improvement: an OANDA hallmark
With this latest application update, OANDA continues its track record of innovation in mobile trading. Today’s release is the result of more than 18 months of work from the OANDA mobile development team, and incorporates user feedback from OANDA customers globally. Mobile devices already account for 30 percent of logins and 15 percent of trades for OANDA clients, a number that has risen rapidly since the company introduced its first mobile trading app in 2010.
“There are no longer any compromises when it comes to mobile,” said OANDA CEO K Duker. “With this new version of our trading app, we’re providing our customers with what they want: a robust platform at their fingertips and a great trading experience, no matter where they are. We’ve seen a strong increase in downloads and use of OANDA’s native mobile app in the last 12 to 18 months, and today’s product keeps our clients at the forefront of this industry trend.”
The OANDA mobile apps for iPhone and iPad users are available for download in the App Store, or on the Google Play apps store for Android-based smartphones and tablets. These apps complement the OANDA MetaTrader 4 mobile applications that are available for iPhone and Android smartphones and tablets.