Freetrade: Free Share Trading

Where did they announce this? This will be useful. The delay in transfer doesn’t really bother me though considering what freetrade is for.

Adam mentioned it on the forum, it might have been mentioned elsewhere as well.

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It will make it a much nicer experience on signup though if you can use it straightaway.

Even better of course would be a monzo integration with instant transfers and an easy setup of a monthly transfer.

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It was mentioned in the Q&A’s in the video below 35mins in (slides for video), as well as future debit card payments :tada:
Freetrade says it takes up to 2 hours in an email, so shouldn’t matter too much for long term investors, but it’ll help with the initial experience.

That’s a good question! I’m not sure! But it will mean that you won’t have to leave the app to top up

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:eyes:

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According to freetrade it’ll be faster (within a couple of hours, possibly faster, and without the business hours restrictions of bank transfers), so that’s good news.

Occasionally they pop in

If it’s a support query you’re better off using in app chat tho

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I keep getting emails to finish my registration with Freetrade. I can’t bring myself to do it. I just don’t really trust them right now, which is silly because I can only presume their business model is similar to Robinhood in the USA: I should really find out.

There’s a couple of things about Freetrade that might help put your mind at ease.

We’re regulated by the FCA, the same organisation that oversees banks. And your deposits are covered by FSCS protection, up to a value of £85,000. We’ve shared more about the ways we keep your money safe here -

there’s a note in the blog post about FSCS protection covering £50k worth of deposits, which was correct until April this year - we’ll update that

When it comes to our business model, all of the ways that we make money are listed transparently on our pricing page https://www.freetrade.io/pricing.

If you have any other concerns then let me know & I’d be happy to share anything else that you may need to know :slight_smile:

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If it helps, I was in the same boat but I eventually took the plunge and love it.

Community is much the same as this one and everyone is very friendly and happy to answer any questions you have!

In app support replies usually take <10mins they are very transparent about any issues or what is going on!

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I’m curious, why don’t you trust them? Is it because you think they will be ripping you off somehow?

I think their model is pretty straightforward - transactions cost them very little, so they offer low flat fees instead of the much higher fees which have made their competitors rich - £1 for instant trades, £3 a month ISA, free trades if bundled with other trades once a day (which probably costs them very little, esp. as their userbase grows). They make some money, you as the customer save money on fees, everyone is happy.

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The other way round actually. I took the leap with Monzo because they offered a pre-paid card at the time + no fees on cash and transactions abroad: no downside. I probably wouldn’t have signed up for Monzo if they just offered current accounts.

Freetrade is different. They handle investments. The vastly different sums of money require more trust upfront (for me, anyway). It’s less they want to rip me off and more how are they going to afford this in the long run and what are the downsides if they can’t? I also assumed it was totally fee free: so you have to pay £1 for immediate trades?

Yeah £1 per instant trade, compared to £10-12 at the leaders. They’ll even make a profit from these trades, which shows how much of a rip off the others are! It’s pretty similar to how Monzo’s transaction fees abroad compare to the big banks.

Also, there was an Apple Pay preview shared, so it’s getting close!

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Yes I think their plan is:

Lure users in with free trading on a basic account (including younger mobile first users), from which they make little money, then upsell those users on various premium options like instant trades, isas, sipps or a bundled ‘alpha’ account including all these perks. I see no reason why they can’t make significant profits long term given sufficient user numbers. Their rivals are billion £ companies. They charge £1 for instant trades though depending on your time horizons you may not need them.

I think you’re right to be cautious with life savings, but investing small amounts with them till you are satisfied should be fine as they are covered by FSCS up to £85k deposits I believe, have a separate client account etc.

I’ve started a new isa with them this year because of the low fees, but am keeping my old one too - you don’t have to move all your money for a while. They also plan to offer a SIPP at some point.

:eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes:

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I wish I had the money, but I’ve just had to renew my car insurance! Bah!

Perhaps if I sold one of my kidneys…

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We’ve ‘launched’ on Product Hunt today by the way :smirk_cat:

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Not sure if I’m missing some context here, but one of the great things about Freetrade is that since it’s fee-free, it becomes viable to invest very small amounts. There are things you can invest in that cost around £1 per share. So you can even sign up and start investing “just for fun”.

Think he means the crowdfunding

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