If you click on the hyperlink I provided, the full comment reads as the following:
We’re anti-intermediation at Freetrade. Intermediaries, or middle-men, just drive up the price for the end customers. The fintech ‘marketplaces’, aggregators and the like are simply intermediaries that need to get paid (or disappear).
We’d love to partner with a company like Monzo, to offer a Freetrade pot, for example. But we wouldn’t pay for it.
There’s already an app store for financial services. It’s called the App Store. Your phone is the platform. It’s a swipe to move apps and see your investments in Freetrade. No need to try and cram everything into one app ( Revolut).
For some reason, @Peter_G omitted the part in bold
Thanks for that. You’ll see Iinked to the original post - I just quoted the bit I thought was relevant. You have different views, obviously. That’s okay
(Not too sure about the emoji though. But hey, emoji away!)
With respect, I think the part in bold is the part which is dead wrong.
Nobody (to a good approximation of nobody) searches the App Store for financial apps, discovery and user retention on the App Store is terrible except for games, and freetrade are going to need significant effort in other channels to drive downloads. They’ve done well prior to launch by leveraging strategies like referrals outside the App Store. When someone else has gathered millions of users saving money in one app, that has lots of value.
They’re also going to need to drive adoption amongst people who currently have zero interest in stocks and investing if they want to really grow outside that niche. For now they can grow by stealing customers from the other offerings, at some point they’re going to have to grow the market past enthusiasts and into people who wouldn’t think of using an app to invest. The App Store is a pretty terrible way to do that (I have developed several apps on it for largish brands so am quite familiar).
It’s transparent to give a reader the full picture as much as possible so the emoji was used. Fair enough, point out what you think is relevant or not but be mindful not to overlook the whole message please.
I use Moneybox which invests in Stocks & Shares. It links to my bank accounts and rounds up my spending to the next £, which is then collected weekly by DD. I can also if I wish top up and boost the amount being invested.
To be honest, the “niche” which Freetrade is operating in is a massive one (£200bn+ market). Freetrade don’t need to gain customers outside the DIY investment platform market in order to be successful, but it is admirable that they want to and I’m convinced they will.
The thing that separates Freetrade from Monzo for me is that they have a revenue generating business model straight out the gate. Freetrade (will) have 3 revenue steady streams which you’ve already pointed out which at scale will be sufficiently profitable.
On that point of scale, Freetrade don’t need Monzo in order to scale and certainly don’t need to pay them a fee for the privilege. There’s latent demand for the Freetrade product just waiting to be untapped. The same way Marcus by GS snapped up 100,000 price-sensitive customers & over £2bn in savings in little over a month, Freetrade will do the same but in the investing space and at their own pace.
Clearly we disagree on the value of a marketplace listing, interesting to me also that Adam would like to be part of a Monzo marketplace, he just doesn’t want to pay for it
I see it as like a referral scheme - another good channel to boost growth and worth some low fee to participate.
That’s exactly right. To (selectively) quote myself from earlier:
Monzo needs more companies on board to prove the concept and get momentum; Freetrade will want customer acquisition. The key will be a fee to Monzo that is less than they would pay by traditional means but which a) advances Monzo’s goals and b) drives Freetrade customer acquisition.
Adam (Freetrade CEO) - at the time of writing - seemed clearly in favour of a Monzo integration (“We’d love to partner with a company like Monzo, to offer a Freetrade pot”). But, also at the time of writing, seemed unwilling to pay for it (“But we wouldn’t pay for it”). My point is that if the cost of customer acquisition via a Monzo pot integration is less than via other methods (particularly organic growth via, for example, advertising), then one could make an argument that it would make commercial sense. And if Monzo provided other services (like KYC) then they could potentially lower Freetrade’s cost base, too.
But none of this is a necessity. I’d like to see it happen. I’ve set out that I think it could be beneficial for both organisations in the medium term. But ultimately only they will decide whether it’s worth the effort, risk and reward.
(Lest anyone take an issue with partial quotes, the bit I quoted from myself originally came from here. The post from Adam is here).
Without a relationship with Freetrade Monzo’s partnership for ISA’s, shares etc is more likely to be with dull old Hargreaves Landsdown or similar. Expensive management fees, £x per trade type arrangements…
Freetrade’s freemium model can’t really afford to be paying partners anything significant.
They could simply charge the £3 ISA fee every month for any integration (personally I’d waive that fee below £1000 total funds or something). Key here IMO is to simplify the offering for those who just want to save. Most people don’t want to pick stocks, and an integration is going to have to be simple - so just pick an index, pick an amount and open the account would be enough IMO.
I agree HL or similar is more likely given freetrade just launched but I’d like to see several options long term and then customers can compare. Freetrade would do well in that comparison I think.
I think Freetrade have indicated that they’re not keen on sharing given their margins which is understandable. For standard ISA’s etc they probably aren’t going to be the best fit - like you suggest, you want some heritage for big sums. I think the stockpicking and fractional is exactly why they are special - imagine the following IFTT integration - if I don’t buy my morning coffee invest £3.40 in Starbucks. If I go to Greggs five days in a week invest £10 in Gregg’s shares! I like it but I think what we’ve seen from this community forum is how different people’s relationship with money is.
Also, meant to say, I think the idea of buying £10 of Tesla, or £50 of Twitter is a great fit for younger investors. Gives bragging rights but respects a limited disposable income.
I totally agree. I think this will be absolutely key for a solid proportion of Monzo’s users. I asked Tom at one of the open office events about their investment proposition, and he mentioned specifically going down the ETF route. Whether it’s a basket of ETFs that track indexes or otherwise, we don’t know, but it seems clear that this has been on their horizon for quite sometime. They also hold the relevant regulatory permission to offer a capital at risk investment product. If they do offer an investment product under the Monzo brand, I very much doubt HL will play a role. I’d expect them to either interface directly with Vanguard, who offer super affordable direct retail investor access to their ETF products, or use Winterflood to carry out a back office broker function. I think i’d be a little concerned if I was MoneyBox when you consider Monzo’s roundup feature…
I think it’s the lack of dealing costs and admin and custody fees that really makes them special. Fractional dealing is some way off… a bird in the hand and all that!
It’s a question of scale. The sum doesn’t have to be significant if there are enough users. Finding the sweet spot will come down to weighing up the different CACs; organic growth vs. leveraging Monzo or Starling’s userbase, and paying a commission to acquire each user. If the latter makes better commercial sense, then the next hurdle is negotiating an equitable agreement. And of course there needs to be the will engage on this basis in the first place.
My own view is that it would be real shame for Freetrade to not attempt to seek a deep integration with Monzo. First mover marketplace advantage! But what does it look like? Real time portfolio valuation with Monzo? Free cash to invest pot?
I suspect the biggest impediment, aside from understanding what it actually is that’s integrated, is the lack of Alpha (Freetrade’s paid product), lack of Android, and possibly the so far limited universe. Developers, Freetrade needs your help!
The weekly roundup feature is a poor implementation though. Its works better when transactions are rounded up in real-time rather than a large chunk being taken out weekly. Might as well disable the roundup feature and transfer £10 a week to Moneybox. In its current state its just a gimmick
I really hope this becomes a thing. Especially, as others have said, with micro-saving at its core. I’m currently in recovery from a heap of debt and have only just started saving at the ripe old age of 52. I could seriously use savings avenues that have the possibility of growing faster than average. Got a 5’2" box to pay for plus however many rounds of sandwiches and sausage rolls. Make it so, Monzo!
Revolut).
