PeepalCo, the company that operates cryptocurrency trading platform CoinSwitch, on Tuesday launched a stock investing mobile app called Lemonn. The launch marks PeepalCo’s expansion into a regulated asset class segment.
Lemonn’s broking services will be provided through Sebi-registered Nu Investors Technologies.
The key features of the app include zero trading brokerage cost for the initial three months, zero fees for account opening, curated industry-based stock offering, and blogs deciphering equity market jargons.
CoinSwitch’s internal team always had the “dream” of building a 360-degree investment app, which focuses not only on one asset class but multiple ones, according to PeepalCo co-founder and group CEO Ashish Singhal.
India is yet to recognise cryptocurrency as a legal tender, and such transactions are heavily taxed, leading to investors shifting en masse to foreign crypto exchanges, thereby hurting the transaction volumes on domestic exchanges.
Asked whether there are guard rails in place to prevent a Paytm like episode, wherein the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) came down heavily on a regulated entity for reportedly sharing a regulated entity’s data with non-regulated parent company, Devam Sharma, business head of Lemonn, said there is an “absolute” one-arm distance between Lemonn and CoinSwitch businesses.
“It has taken us a while to land at the right entity structure, to have absolute one-hand plus distance across people, physical and software infrastructure (between the two businesses),” he said, adding that only compliance takes the top priority to build a sustainable company in the long run.