Interactive Brokers, an online trading broker, has made fresh changes to its mobile application. Launched this Wednesday, the broker has added new features for the viewing of past trade data.
Most notably, traders can now look at their past seven days of trading. By going to the application’s ‘Orders and Trades’ section, users will now be able to look back over their activity over the past week.
This change represents a big change in users’ ability to view past data. Previously, clients would only be able to view the trades and orders they had made in the past 24-hours.
It has been a busy few months for the Interactive Brokers trading application. For instance, last month the broker announced that it would be enabling users to start trading in mutual funds.
This development itself came only a month after more trading options were added to the mobile application. In June, Interactive Brokers introduced corporate and mutual bond trading to the mobile application.
Other recent updates include integration with the broker’s debit card. Launched in May, traders that use an Interactive Brokers debit card can see immediately how much money they have available to trade.
Growing Importance
Mobile applications have become increasingly important to firms over the past five years. Part of the reason for this is simply technological change - ten years ago there were far fewer smartphones, and they were not as advanced as they are today.
At the same time, the broker market is a fairly saturated one, and many companies offer a near-identical set of instruments. As such, improvements in technology have been a key means by which firms can make themselves stand out from the crowd.
The newest tweaks to the Interactive Brokers application is a minor example of these efforts. Though it is sure to please some users, application developments should be viewed cumulatively - the more changes, the more likely the application is to be to prospective customers.
