HDFC Securities launches mobile trading app HDFC SKY on AWS cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday said HDFC Securities, which is among the leading investment service providers in India, has launched its mobile trading app, HDFC SKY on the AWS cloud.

With AWS, HDFC Securities is expected to reduce its annual IT infrastructure and management costs by up to 50 per cent as compared to using on-premises infrastructure.

AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing unit, has recently outlined plans to invest USD 12.7 billion in cloud infrastructure in the country by 2030 as it looks to meet growing customer demand for cloud services.

“AWS, an Amazon.com company, announced today that HDFC Securities Ltd., one of the leading investment service providers in India, launched its new mobile trading app, HDFC SKY, on the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud,” according to the release on Monday.

With AWS India as its preferred cloud provider, HDFC Securities is providing a secure and low-latency trading service for the growing number of tech-savvy retail investors who prefer mobile trading, the release added.

HDFC SKY, which is built on AWS, gives investors access to the stock market at a scale of thousands of transactions per second.

HDFC Sky serves 75 million customers and all HDFC Group companies, investors, and traders globally on trading of shares, commodities, futures, currencies, Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), mutual funds, and Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs).

To make trading more transparent and accessible for investors, HDFC SKY operates on a flat pricing model, charging traders a consistent, predetermined fee, regardless of the amount of money invested or the number of transactions made.

HDFC Securities is looking to harness the power of machine learning (ML) on AWS to serve its customers better, by offering more personalised and tailored experiences, the release said.

The company is also looking at intelligent document processing pipelines to improve customer onboarding and servicing experiences by using AWS’s generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) offerings.

The release further said by leveraging the AWS Mumbai and Hyderabad infrastructure regions, HDFC Securities benefits from increased performance, security, reliability, and scale to ensure business continuity and disaster recovery while meeting data residency preferences and data protection levels required in the financial services industry.

“AWS helped us to create a culture of builders within HDFC Securities by enabling us to rapidly experiment at a lower cost so that we can innovate on behalf of our customers,” Sandeep Bhardwaj, chief operating and digital officer at HDFC Securities, said.

The financial services industry in South Asia is rapidly using cloud technology and AI to cope with growing demand from sophisticated retail investors, Vaishali Kasture, director and country leader, Commercial Sales at AWS India and South Asia, said.

“HDFC Securities can scale resources with demand and has the tools to build an evolving suite of innovative investor services with AWS,” Kasture said.

AWS has invested USD 3.7 billion (about Rs 30,900 crore) in India from 2016 to 2022. Further, it plans to invest USD 12.7 billion in the country by 2030 in local cloud infrastructure, taking the total investment here to USD 16.4 billion (Rs 1,36,500 crore) by 2030.

“These investments are a catalyst to accelerate innovation and drive productivity, which will contribute an estimated USD 23.3 billion (Rs 1,94,700 crore) to India’s total gross domestic product by 2030,” as per the release.

AWS has also trained more than 4 million individuals in India with cloud skills since 2017.