Traders now regularly do $100 million deals on mobile apps

What if you could trade hundreds of millions of dollars all from your smartphone? You know, the same device you use to hire an Uber or order delivery on a lazy Sunday afternoon? For many foreign exchange traders, this is becoming the new status quo at institutions like JP Morgan Chase & Co. thanks to changing perceptions of security and comfort with mobile trading apps.

In a new survey released by JP Morgan Chase & Co., more than 61 percent of 400 responding traders say they’re “somewhat” or “extremely” likely to use a mobile trading app in 2018. This is up significantly from 31 percent the year before. There’s still some room to grow, as 50% of respondents indicated they are still barred from mobile trading due to company policy.

What’s changed? Security standards, for one thing. With increased application of biometric security (including facial recognition on devices like the iPhone X), the financial industry has begun to embrace large scale mobile trading, often pushing through over $100 million in trades during a single mobile transaction. The largest documented transaction so far was over $400 million, according to reporting from Bloomberg.

For many years individuals have been able to invest and conduct trades on the stock market through mobile apps like Robinhood or Acorns which has opened up new possibilities for financial growth and ease-of-access for those of us who find the constant swings of the stock market hard to understand without a great deal of study.

It is only fitting that the largest and oldest financial institutions in the world would soon come to embrace the cost-efficiency and usability of mobile trading. It’s not far-fetched to imagine that we could soon see the first $1 billion trade conducted through the same device you play Candy Crush on.

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