Kotak Neo - Stock Trading App

How user-centered design drove 18x growth and attracted 5 million investors

Industry

Fintech

Client

Kotak Securities

Role

Product Designer

Year

2020-2021

When COVID-19 triggered a wave of first-time investors across India, every trading platform saw the same tailwind. Kotak Securities, one of India's most established brokerages backed by the country's fourth-largest bank, was well-positioned to capture it. But new investors were choosing digitally-native competitors like Zerodha and Groww for their simpler, faster experience. The answer wasn't an incremental update. Kotak needed a new product built from the ground up.

The Challenge

The product had to serve two groups with fundamentally different needs: first-time investors who needed guidance and confidence, and experienced traders who needed speed and control. Designing for one without compromising the other was the central problem.

Kotak Securities app in 2020 vs digital-native competition apps

My Role

Product Designer at Obvious, embedded with Kotak's digital transformation team. I owned the order flow (the product's most critical feature), along with core screens across the trading journey and the foundational design system.

Process

Research & Framing

We audited competing apps — Zerodha, Groww, Upstox, and others — and spoke with investors across the experience spectrum. The pattern that emerged was consistent: new investors didn't talk about UX. They talked about trust and not wanting to feel out of their depth. Seasoned traders talked about speed, reliability, and fine-grained control over their orders. Two genuinely different problems, which shaped everything that followed.

A Key Strategic Decision

Most trading apps at the time optimised for one type of user and left the other to figure it out. Neo did something different: two distinct flows within the same product, one built around guidance and confidence for new investors, the other around speed and control for experienced traders. Every user would have access to both. We sequenced the build to prioritise the new investor experience first: get the fundamentals right, then layer in advanced trading. The approach has since become common in the category. In 2020, it wasn't.

Solution

Designing the Order Form

The order form is where users commit real money. Get it wrong, and beginners feel overwhelmed. Oversimplify it, and traders can't execute on their terms. This was the most critical design challenge of the entire product.

Side by side comparison of the two order forms

For New Investors: Progressive Disclosure

I broke complex order decisions into digestible steps with in-context education.

  • Plain language: "Set price limit" not "Limit price"

  • In-context explanations for key terms and concepts

  • 2-step flow (order → review → confirm) giving users a moment to pause before committing

  • Prominent total cost display throughout

3-screen order flow for investors

For Experienced Traders: Information Density & Speed

Traders needed everything visible upfront. No progressive steps, no hand-holding.

  • Single-screen layout with all parameters accessible

  • Quick toggles for advanced order types

  • Real-time P&L calculation

  • One-tap order placement

Single-screen order flow for traders

Order Tracking

Stock trading is anxious for new investors in a way that e-commerce isn't. Borrowing the familiar order timeline pattern from shopping apps gave users a clear, predictable view of where their order stood, reducing uncertainty at a moment that mattered.

Order status tracking — Proactive communication building trust

Adapting for Desktop

Desktop users (20% of traffic) tended toward longer research sessions. The layout scaled to a multi-column view (watchlist, charts, and order form simultaneously) while preserving the same dual-flow logic for both user types.

Desktop view — the order form opens as a side panel, keeping the chart and watchlist in context.

Design System

I built the component library that underpins the product's visual language. It's still in use today.

Other Screens

Beyond the order flow, I designed across the full trading journey. A few screens below: home and portfolio, stock discovery and search, stock detail pages, and options trading.

Supporting screens across Neo's trading journey

Impact

5M+

User joined, with 70% being first-time investors

18x

Revenue growth in 3 years (2.5x better than industry avg.)

4x

Faster feature delivery through design system

4.4/5

App rating (175k+ reviews) with users praising ease of use and clean design

Neo launched into the same COVID tailwind every competitor had. In a category now dominated by Zerodha and Groww, Kotak went from an ageing legacy platform to a product with 5M+ users, an 18x revenue jump, and a 4.4 rating. Not the market leader, but a serious contender where there wasn't one before.