About the Client
An international company that distributes and markets precious metals. They wanted private investors to be able to buy, sell and exchange metals from a phone, the way they already trade everything else.
Challenges
The product sits between a consumer app and a financial service, and it had to satisfy both audiences.
- An interface attractive enough for private investors who are used to modern trading apps.
- A process with real-world steps: order, confirmation, bank transfer, purchase, allocation of a unique identification number, storage in insured vaults.
- Registration that collects what a financial product must collect without losing the user: it runs to eight steps.
- Native apps on both platforms plus a backend, delivered as one coherent product.
Our Approach
We built three parts: a PHP/Laravel backend, a native Android app and a native iOS app. Native was the right call here: biometric authentication and charting both work better close to the platform.
The app covers the whole investor journey: account settings, activity history, balance, personal goals, and an upgrade path from the basic account created at registration to a higher tier with more capability. We added biometric login, password recovery, and a referral system built on QR codes that users can both read and generate.
Orders flow into an admin process: the user is confirmed by email, transfers funds to the company account named in the agreement, and once payment arrives the metal is purchased, given an identification number and sent to insured storage.
Results
- 500 unique users registered in the first four months after release.
- Private investors worldwide gained access to a market that previously ran through brokers and paperwork.
- The platform was built to take exchange and trading integrations once user testing justified them.
Technology Stack
Backend: PHP, Laravel. Android: Kotlin, RxJava, Retrofit, OkHttp, Koin, Moxy, Material Design, Glide, Biometrics, Firebase, ZXing, MPAndroidChart. iOS: Swift, UIKit, Alamofire, AVFoundation, Charts, Firebase, Local Authentication, Face ID.
Business Impact
Five hundred registered investors in four months is a product that found its audience, not a launch that was announced. For a dealer whose business ran on relationships and paperwork, the app opened a channel that works without either.