Nithin Kamath, founder and CEO of Zerodha, took to Twitter on Sunday, November 27, 2022, to wish the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) on its 30th anniversary. In the tweet, he also credited NSE's free software for brokers, Neat On Web (NOW), for the formation of his broking company, which is now one of India's largest stock broking platforms.
Kamath's tweet read, "Happy 30th NSE India. Feels like yesterday when we first saw NSE NOW in 2009- the free platform NSE offered its brokers. This led to us questioning if tech is free, can we disrupt the pricing? An arbitrage trade.”
He added further, “Zerodha online wouldn't have happened if not for NSE & NOW."
Happy 30th @NSEIndia 🍾
November 27, 2022
Feels like yesterday when we first saw NSE NOW in 2009—the free platform NSE offered its brokers. This led to us questioning if tech is free, can we disrupt the pricing? An arbitrage trade. 😬@zerodhaonline wouldn't have happened if not for NSE & NOW.In July 2008, the NSE launched the NOW software to empower stock traders to focus on trading activities by reducing their overheads on non-trading activities like maintaining infrastructure (network, hardware, network), system audits, etc.
However, in September 2020, the exchange discontinued the NOW software due to substantial progress in the front-end systems for trading members. In a LinkedIn post, Nithin Kamath expressed his gratitude towards NOW on the last day of the platform saying, “Tried NOW a free trading platform by NSE for the first time back in 08. It was barebones but faster than others. This gave us the idea if tech is free, can pricing be disrupted & the rest is history. Today is the last day of NOW which enabled many brokers like us to get started. 🙏NSE.”
Earlier, stock exchanges would provide front-end software that was standardised for all. However, over time, stock exchanges globally shifted to publishing APIs to develop customised solutions to suit each broker's needs. So, while discontinuing the NOW platform, the NSE also started publishing simplifies APIs to build solutions as per the brokerages' requirements.
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