Upstox saw a 68% increase in user onboarding through Account Aggregator

Upstox is one of the largest and most popular trading apps in India with over 1 crore customers. Upstox offers trading, analysis, charting and other rich features making it easy for their users to invest in just a few clicks.

Their mission is to democratise financial security and promote investments amongst Indian consumers. Using Upstox, their users can invest in stocks, mutual funds, bonds, derivatives and other formal assets.

However, derivatives trading—a complex yet critical offering for their users—requires diligent income verification. This process, mandated by SEBI, was cumbersome and not user-friendly. It involved asking users to submit financial documents like bank statements or salary slips.

Nobody has these documents handy so a user is expected to get this document, come back to the app and upload a large PDF file. Upstox then parses this file, estimates income and decides whether the user is eligible or not. As you can imagine this creates friction and deters potential traders.

Upstox’s product manager, Sugam and his team knew there had to be a better way to verify the income of their users while ensuring they are compliant with all SEBI guidelines.

Enabling instant access to derivates trading

Upstox partnered with Setu, leveraging the Setu Account Aggregator gateway to streamline this process.

Setu’s Account Aggregator gateway allowed Upstox’s users to easily link their bank accounts to the app and securely share financial data, without the hassle of uploading documents. This integration transformed their user experience, making income verification instant and seamless.

The TAT to verify income jumped from X% to Y% immediately.

The results were clear and impactful.

Upstox saw a 68% increase in users for derivatives trading, indicating a significant reduction in entry barriers.

Additionally, 26% more customers completed the income-proof process, and the rejection rate post-income-proof submission dropped by 22%.

These numbers not only highlight the potential of the Account Aggregator ecosystem but also Upstox’s commitment to improving access and reducing the wealth gap in India. By simplifying a complex regulatory requirement, Upstox demonstrated the power of new-age technology in democratising financial services.

The growing lifetime value of users

Upstox’s integration with Setu’s Account Aggregator gateway to enable derivative trading also invoked confidence to go deeper into the AA framework. Upstox is also powering a personal finance management module in their app to better help their users understand their investments across multiple trading platforms. Ultimately, this will also help in increasing the lifetime value of their users.

Most personal finance management and wealth tech apps struggle with aggregating or tracking a user’s income, expenses and investments in a single place. The other challenge with these apps is offering one-size-fits-all plans or advice, to very different individuals.

Why does a freelancer with very different streams of income, need to be offered a standard monthly SIP investment? For these apps to offer personalised advice to their users, they would need to understand multiple factors like monthly income, expenses, cash-in-bank, other investments, risk appetite and what not.

Today, most of these are shared through 1:1 interactions and clunky file sharing. Setu’s Account Aggregator gateway allows these applications to get a view into not just the cash flows of these users to offer better payment or investment structures but also suggest investment avenues based on their history, risk appetite and demographic profile.

Quote from Sugam/Upstox team :