London Fintech Revolut to Add Commission Free Online Stock Trading Offer
Quickly growing London Fintech company Revolut is stepping up its mission to disrupt the UK’s traditional financial services landscape with the introduction of a commission free stock broking offering. Since launching 3 years ago, the online only fintech has launched current accounts, FX transfer services, insurance products, personal loans and cryptocurrencies trading, attracting over 2 million users and account holders.
Revolut’s approach is to slash the fees and commissions traditionally charged by banks as well as much of the red tape. This is achieved through the lower overheads of not having to support bricks and mortar bank branches and generally streamlined, more efficient structure. Superior technology architecture custom built from the ground up with no requirement to be integrated with or be adapted to legacy infrastructure is also a significant cost advantage.
In the USA, Robinhood, a specialist no commission app-based online stockbroker has had significant success and also recently launched a low cost cryptocurrencies trading service. While there are now a few budget stock brokers on the UK market, such as Netherlands-based Degiro, Revolut’s new service will be the country’s first genuinely commission free broker. The company, like Robinhood, will make money from the stock broking platform by offering premium services, margin trading and securities lending, where stocks owned by clients will be loaned to third parties.
Initially a limited range of shares will be offered initially, focused on the most liquid, traded stocks such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, BP, Shell etc., before the service is gradually expanded. The company’s aim is to make investing online in the stock market more accessible to a wider audience through cutting out high fees and making the user interface for buying, selling and monitoring shares easier to use.
The service is planned to launch in early 2019, with the fintech this week announcing their plans through a statement that read:
“We will make investments cheap, intuitive and completely mobile, which is exactly what our audience has come to expect from us. This is another step towards our goal of building a one-stop shop where people can manage their entire financial lives.”
Over the past couple of years, a handful on tech-focused online-only challenger banks and bank-like fintech services such as Starling Bank and Monzo, as well as Revolut and Transferwise, have entered the UK market. Offering a much more attractive cost structure, ease of setting up accounts and usability several are now beginning to gain traction and provide genuine competition to the established high street brands.
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