{"id":4244,"date":"2015-03-10T17:15:08","date_gmt":"2015-03-10T11:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zerodha.com\/z-connect\/?p=4244"},"modified":"2024-02-02T15:27:46","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T09:57:46","slug":"introduction-to-pi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zerodha.com\/z-connect\/general\/introduction-to-pi","title":{"rendered":"Introduction – Pi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Traders,<\/p>\n

Pi is our new in-house desktop trading application built in\u00a0partnership with Tradelab<\/a>, a young financial technology business building some cutting edge trading products.<\/p>\n

Our Journey – Trading Platforms<\/h3>\n

Back when we started in August 2010 we were bootstrapped, and the only way we could get the business rolling with limited capital and work at such low brokerages was because of NSE NOW. NEAT on Web or NOW is a shared trading platform of NSE, and completely free of cost to offer for the broking firm who is a member of the exchange. Our first year of business was completely run on NOW, but as we started getting bigger we had to offer more, \u00a0trading on multiple exchanges (BSE, MCX, etc.), introduce advance trading products (Bracket, Cover, etc.), and more.<\/p>\n

We partnered with Omnesys (now Thomson Reuters(TR)) in September 2011, a vendor for trading platforms. In India, 90% of the brokerages use a vendor (mostly Omnesys or FT), and only 10% (Sharekhan, ICICIdirect, etc.) have their in-house trading, order management (OMS), and risk management platform (RMS).\u00a0Omnesys helped us scale the business without impacting our bottom line because of their efficient pricing model and open source architecture. We knew that if we had to make a mark in this business, we had to do a lot more than just offer the same NEST platform that everyone already\u00a0did.<\/p>\n

We started committing capital and working on our in-house trading platforms\u00a0–\u00a0Pi (desktop trading application in partnership with Tradelab) from January 2014, and Kite ( being developed by Zerodha tech team) from October 2014. Omnesys\/TR has a tried and tested OMS\/RMS, and hence we decided to stick with it and change only the user interface or the trading front end. So you get the stability of the most popular and reliable execution management system in TR OMS\/RMS, and also probably the best desktop trading platform in Pi. Kite our web\/mobile platform has a super simple user interface, integrated trading and reporting (Q\/Quant) platform, brilliant charting, intuitive search and filters, lightning fast trading, and more.<\/p>\n

What this also means is that you as a client can use NEST(our current platform) and Pi simultaneously. You could logout of NEST and login to Pi, and vice versa.<\/p>\n

Why the name Pi (\u03c0)?\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

The number \u03c0<\/span><\/b> is a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, commonly approximated as 3.14159. It has been represented by the Greek letter “\u03c0<\/span>” since the mid-18th century, though it is also sometimes spelled out as “pi<\/b>” (\/<\/a><\/span>p<\/span><\/a><\/span>a\u026a<\/span><\/a><\/span>\/<\/a><\/span><\/span>). We love the history and its properties of irrationality and transcendence, and hence the name “Pi”. You can read more on history of\u00a0Pi here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pi till now<\/h3>\n

We released the first beta in October 2014 to a selected few clients, followed by a second release last December, and on\u00a0January 12, 2015 we released the final beta. We have had over 5000 people test it out over the last 6 months, and have received over 20000 comments and suggestions via email and on Zconnect. You can track all the activity\u00a0on Zconnect here.<\/a><\/p>\n

We are all ready for the final release on Monday, March 30th, 2015. Pi will be a continuous project, and we will keep looking at adding as many features and tools as possible in\u00a0time. So we will continue to call this beta for now.<\/p>\n

\"Pi\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Quick video of Pi – first beta release<\/h3>\n