I’m looking for a new stocks and shares broker. Has anyone got any experience with, or feedback on, Trading 212?
I’m also curious about their business model. Anyone know how they make their money?
Thanks everyone! 
PS let’s also use this for general T212 discussion - I don’t think we have a dedicated topic yet!
Thanks, super useful.
(Just a reminder that referral links should really go in the wiki though 
).
Do you know what their business model is? I can’t see how they make money…
There’s an article about them here, although it is a year old…
I think some of their other offerings have fees.
But honestly, not sure. 
So I’ve been doing some googling. This seems to explain it quite well (until the end where things all seem to take a murky turn around Freetrade’s community forum):
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/2c308470-e8b7-40e3-bcd4-d9d4696233b4
It’s like Freetrade only with far more to choose from.
I would say if Freetrade is Monzo, T212 is Starling. Take of that what you will. 
I have a mix of legacy HL/AJ and Freetrade/T212 and all good for different purposes.
I was wondering about that analogy, but I had it the other way around! 
I use T212 and Freetrade. At the moment T212 has a better product overall. I also like FT and have a few positions with them but most is currently with T212
Freetrade community has that over excited puppy feel to it like Monzo (wanna be Warren buffets was a recent phrase I liked). The app pops and looks better than T212s but lacks content.
Whilst T212 community is less fun and more formal and the app is very functional looking imo and has more to offer.
Widest variety of UK stocks. My favourite dealing platform, with Freetrade coming second (even though they’re missing loads of stocks)
Trading212 actually recently updated this chart after being prompted:
You can find it here and more on their community forum:
Simply put, T212 CFD account cross subsidises their free Trading212 Invest, and ISA, accounts. Think what you will of this model but here’s T212’s take:
They do plan to monetise it eventually:
Disclaimer: I’m a small Freetrade crowdfunding investor and one of the app’s early users. I’ve had T212 Invest account for less than a month. The only thing Freetrade has better than T212 atm is a more elegant looking app (subjective) and an interactive community forum (recent crackdown aside). In every other area, T212 came out of nowhere - while we were focussing on the threats of Robinhood and Revolut - and overtook them overnight. Their development and execution has been insane, and their pipeline of new features coming in April will extend their lead. Freetrade have serious catching up to do but the bigger picture is their real rivals are the incumbents, not each other, hence why I have both accounts and would suggest others try both too.
Man, as a Freetrade customer this makes me sad :(.
They are SO far behind, might have to move all my shares.
I don’t know if you can move the shares, or whether you have to sell & rebuy them
Yup, its possible to move stocks between brokers, takes about 3-5 days but at least they keep their value and you don’t need to sell/buy them again.
Does Freetrade support this though? When I tried to move from a basic account to ISA with them I was told I’d need to sell up.
I think they were working on Bed and ISA to help with that. Don’t know if it ever got finished.
What does that mean? (Sorry, slow on the uptake today).
Bed and ISA is where an investment is sold in a general investing account and then bought in the ISA. The two transactions are done together to reduce exposure to market movement. Although it still means you have to pay any transaction costs and any stamp duty where if applicable.
Exactly that, the “bed” is the selling your investments, the money is then transferred to your ISA, and then your investments are bought back.
The £20k annual allowance still applies, so if it exceeds that the remainder should go to your general investing account again.
It’s basically a way to save you manually selling, transferring the cash and rebuying which at legacy would be costing you £10+ a pop on each of the sells and buys, whilst this is a one transaction cost and minimises the impact in changes in the market.
Edit: I should add its not a get out of jail card for paying CGT. So may be worth manually selling some if you are going to be making more than £12k gain. And then waiting a week and sell some more in the new 2020-2021 year (£12,300).
vs 
