Through his Twitter handler, Nithin first congratulated NSE on its 30th anniversary. He then added, "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 further said, "Zerodha Online wouldn't have happened if not for NSE & NOW."
NSE launched a software called NEAT ON WEB (NOW) in July 2008. NOW empowered trading investors to focus more on trading activities by minimising their overheads on non-trading-related activities such as maintaining infrastructure (hardware, network, application), system audits, etc.
However, after a successful 12-year journey, NSE discontinued the NOW platform with effect from September 14, 2020, and later shut down the facility on December 28 of the same year. The reason behind the discontinuation of the NOW platform was due to substantial technological progress in trading member front-end systems.
Earlier, exchanges provided front-end software that was essentially standardised and a one-size-fits-all solution. However, over the last few years, exchanges globally took a step back and shifted to publishing APIs for the ecosystem to develop customised solutions that suit each brokerage's need. Hence, while discontinuing the NOW platform, NSE in line with global trends, started publishing simplified APIs for members or developers to build appropriate solutions for brokerages.
On June 8, 2020, when NSE made the official announcement, Nithin expressed mixed feelings about the discontinuation of the NOW platform. He tweeted, "We saw NSE NOW in 2008 as an innovative idea by NSE to help its members go digital by giving the trading platform for free. We spotted an opportunity to disrupt pricing and that's how Zerodha started. Mixed feelings to hear that it will be discontinued."
