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Collaborative Investment & Trading Management Platform

The client: A global leader in alternative investment management, specializing in real estate, hedge funds, private equity, real assets, and credit, serving both individual and institutional investors. The company offers a range of fintech custom trading software that simplifies investment.

The CHI Software team was brought in to transform the architecture of the client’s internal investment and trading platform, modernize, and optimize it. The goal was achieving high configurability, faster decision-making, and future extensibility – and here’s how we delivered.

Project background

The client manages a diverse portfolio of alternative assets and executes high volumes of trades daily, and needed to provide their teams with a single investment management platform. Their existing toolkit was outdated because it divided workflows across multiple systems, slowed down decision-making, and added additional manual work, thereby increasing risk.

The new trading management platform had to stream data in real-time, enforce trading restrictions and approvals, and log every action for audit purposes. It needed to scale with user growth and new strategies, allowing for quick configuration of fields and workflows while providing secure access through group-level roles and single sign-on functionality. Faster feature delivery and shorter release cycles were needed to maintain client satisfaction and revenue. Many of these patterns are covered in the article “Stock Trading App Development.”

Clean and hassle-free flow between upstream and downstream data systems was a priority for this. The collaborative trading platform required consistent identifiers, reliable messaging, and fast retrieval from optimized warehouses to support same-day decisions and end-of-day reporting.

This solution demonstrates a mature approach to a trading management platform within a real-world environment. The results captured in this investment platform case study demonstrate how targeted architecture and delivery changes can potentially enhance speed, scalability, and auditability.

For readers seeking a broader perspective on the field, see how to build an investment platform.

Duration: 5 months (ongoing)
Location: USA & international
Industry: Finance

Services:
Custom Financial Software Development, Web Application Development, Microservices Architecture Transition, Performance Optimization, CI/CD Implementation, Frontend & Backend Development, Infrastructure-as-Code Setup

Business needs

Top Notch Performance

Page loads and task execution needed to be consistently fast. Stable response times during peak trading times, predictable database behavior, and minimal latency for real-time updates were required to support daily decision-making.

Seamless Scaling Up

Growth in users, data volume, and product features required painless scaling. Horizontal expansion of services, independent resource limits, and smooth onboarding of new strategies were priorities to avoid bottlenecks.

Faster Deployment Time

Release cycles were taking too long to keep pace with market needs. A streamlined path from commit to production, smaller deployable units, and clear rollback procedures were necessary to cut time to market and reduce risk introduced by release delays.

Customer Satisfaction

User trust is heavily dependent on speed, accuracy, and steady delivery of useful features. Fewer interruptions, transparent audit trails, and timely updates were needed to improve retention and increase fintech trading platform value.

Product features

Enterprise Grade Access Control: Group Roles and SSO provide secure access with fine-grained permissions.

Order Lifecycle Management: Order creation, allocation, and assignment between PMs and traders run in one governed flow on the trading management platform.

Collaborative Work Queues: Shared queues and statuses coordinate routing, reviews, and approvals across teams on a collaborative trading platform.

Precise Instrument Selection: Specific assets and parameters are enforced when creating a detailed order.

Configurable UI and Dynamic Fields: Forms can be easily modified by an administrator without requiring changes to the code to update their fields, visibility, and validation requirements.

Capital Allocation to Funds: Capital is allocated to chosen funds with target values that support portfolio and strategy goals.

Trading Restrictions and Approvals: Trading restrictions, pre-trade checks, and staged approvals are fully auditable.

Real-Time Data Synchronization: Real-time propagation reduces reconciliation effort and keeps states aligned across systems.

High-Speed Data Access: Optimized warehouse structures enable fast retrieval for intraday views and end-of-day reporting.

End-to-End Audit Trail: Every action is logged, including the actor, time, and values before and after, to support governance and audits.

Visual Block

Solution

1. Microservices Architecture

The trading management platform was rebuilt into smaller, independent parts on AWS, each responsible for a specific function. The approach created a flexible and scalable trading system where computing power and storage grow only when demand increases. A failure in one area no longer affects the whole platform, ensuring stability and faster recovery for the investment management platform.

2. Decoupled Backend Services

Services operate separately with dedicated logs, health checks, and clear communication rules. Reduced cross-dependencies make issue tracking easier and debugging more direct. Performance metrics and security controls are applied to every component of the trading management software.

3. Upgrade to .NET 8 and EF Core

After migrating to .NET 8 and EF Core, the platform became faster and more efficient. Optimized queries and reduced memory usage enable smooth, high-load trading and uninterrupted collaborative investment across desks.

4. Security Optimization

Access control was restructured around group roles that reflect real team structures. It simplified user management, protected sensitive operations, and prepared the system for integration with modern compliance tools in investment management, trading technology, and auditing.

5. Hosting via AWS S3 and an API Gateway

Static assets are served from AWS with routing through a secure gateway. The setup enables faster content delivery, enhances resilience, and provides teams with complete control over traffic across the fintech trading platform.

6. CI and CD Pipelines

Automated pipelines handle testing, security scanning, and deployment. Releases move from staging to production only after passing each checkpoint. If something fails, the system rolls back quickly, ensuring stability without disruption.

Our technology stack

C#
.NET 6/8
ASP.NET
EF Core
F#
Python
Angular
SignalR
SQL Server
MySQL
Docker
Terraform
Jenkins
AWS
AWS EKS
IBM MQ

Key achievements delivered

Faster Performance

The new architecture of the trading management platform and runtime tuning in .NET 8 cut latency across hot paths. Page loads and order actions execute faster under peak load, resulting in a 60% increase in overall speed.

Better Security

Service isolation, Group Roles, and a complete audit trail strengthened the investment management platform's security posture. With tighter boundaries and clearer permissions, security improved by 30%.

Improved Scalability

Independent services scale horizontally and store data more efficiently. The result is a scalable trading system that handles higher volumes without rework, achieving a 5x improvement in practical scalability.

Quicker Time to Market

Automated pipelines and smaller, deployable units accelerated the development of the trade management software. Lead time from commit to production was halved, producing a 2x faster time to market with predictable rollbacks.

Boost in User Satisfaction

Fewer delays, transparent approvals, and smoother workflows in the custom trading software reduced friction for PMs and traders. According to the client, user satisfaction increased by 40%.