Commission free trading platforms for UK stocks

[DeLorean75]

Morning

Does anyone have a strong recommendation for the commission free* trading platforms?

I'm a Revolut customer which started my curiosity but wanted something that covers UK stocks as well (Revolut is only US stocks)

Freetrade, etoro, etc are active in this space - just seeking any personal experiences?

Thanks

• yes I acknowledge there will be an annual fee of some sort

[chml]

Trading212 seems to get ok reviews across the board

[dingg]

There's no such thing, better off paying for the service and getting fills at the market price with no slippage.

[millen]

You could take a look at DeGiro. Commissions are typically £2 on UK stocks and $1 or lower on US. Fills are pretty much instant, sometimes split over a few transactions to get to your total. As a UK resident you'd probably default to a GBP denominated account, but every non-UK transaction is converted to GBP at very close to the prevailing spot rate, which makes tax records much easier, and avoids the 1-2% FX charges that some UK brokers apply.

Some have said their stock prices aren't the keenest though I find this hard to assess. They also got a bit funny in the summer about holding significant cash balances (as they'd promised not to apply negative interest rates on their money market funds) but they now say they're switching to an approved EU bank with EU compensation limits.

They also make you take a basic on-line test before allowing 'complex' investments, which seems to include ETFs, ETNs, preference shares etc.

Their Xmas update apologised for a few service problems in the March panic but says they've invested in capacity since.

I've also heard good reports of Saxo Bank but not investigated costs.

[cloud_dog]

chml said:

Trading212 seems to get ok reviews across the board

Whilst their advertisement may say 'free' trades, I think a better description is opaque. Their own T&C's indicate that they can load the bid/offer spread (to their advantage), although whether they do or not is anyone's guess. The reason for this, and another drawback of T212 (I think) is that they do not actually offer real-time trades. They try to bundle up buys/sells so as to execute the transactions in as efficient a manner (for them) as possible.

[DeLorean75]

dingg said:

There's no such thing, better off paying for the service and getting fills at the market price with no slippage.

Surely not being charged on each transaction means you could dip in and out of stocks without feeling you had to amortise the [in/out] costs over the ownership journey / performance?

[darreni]

There is always a charge in there somewhere, if comm free, it'll be built in to the spread on the stocks.

[chip*]

darreni said:

There is always a charge in there somewhere, if comm free, it'll be built in to the spread on the stocks.

+1

Maybe it's just me (and the way my brain is tuned from a life in Finance within the Corporate side), but my spidery sense always rise when any financial / investment company promotion mention the word "free" or "transparent"..

[DeLorean75]

Ah gotcha - ok well thanks for responses - all interesting.

Irrespective of the (doubtless correct) comments on commy it's not hard to see this style of investing getting more popular with Joe Public (and me frankly even though I have Barclays and Saxo platforms) especially if it includes fractional ownership. I had to jump through multiple compliance loops just to get a Saxo trading account to access the US and wait for several weeks until they got back to me: I can buy a stock in fractions of a sec on Revolut albeit it seems quite a limited basket.

Will be interesting to see if the likes of Revolut do expand to a UK stock universe. I saw that Robinhood engaged reverse on UK expansion but whether that was regulatory, tech or funding issues seemed hard to disaggregate.

[DeLorean75]

chip* said:

+1

Maybe it's just me (and the way my brain is tuned from a life in Finance within the Corporate side), but my spidery sense always rise when any financial / investment company promotion mention the word "free" or "transparent"..

Concur but if it's a case of pay us £[100] a year then that's different to me. Some punters will trade a lot others won't so I am minded to being open-minded about not being stiffed on commission - at least until I know if that is the case, but point taken.

[darreni]

Also consider the stability of the trading platform, with volatile markets, people have experienced issues in logging in or being able to trade at all.

[cloud_dog]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Be careful with fractional share holding.

There are not many providers (I can't think of any) who support fractional shares so, if you find yourself in the same position as any of the SVS Securities or Beaufort Securities account holders the administrators may find it virtually impossible to find a broker willing to take on the accounts.

[DeLorean75]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Thanks

Sorry, SD = ? Standard?

[darreni]

Stamp duty

[DeLorean75]

darreni said:

Stamp duty

Ah sorry - brain fart
Thx

[lost in espace]

I use IG if you trade 3 times a month it is £3 a trade.

[Cheib]

DeLorean75 said:

Morning

Does anyone have a strong recommendation for the commission free* trading platforms?

I'm a Revolut customer which started my curiosity but wanted something that covers UK stocks as well (Revolut is only US stocks)

Freetrade, etoro, etc are active in this space - just seeking any personal experiences?

Thanks

• yes I acknowledge there will be an annual fee of some sort

What is the legal position if you’re buying stocks through Revolut ? I use a Revolut card when I am abroad (no not recently)....had no idea they’d ventrured into stock trading. What do they offer exactly ?

[DeLorean75]

Cheib said:

What is the legal position if you’re buying stocks through Revolut ? I use a Revolut card when I am abroad (no not recently)....had no idea they’d ventrured into stock trading. What do they offer exactly ?

Hi. They give you access to a limited basket (maybe 500) of US stocks only, as well as crypto. I wanted to dabble, and I do mean dabble, with a few UK stocks so I upgraded to their basic pay monthly service for a different reason (the virtual cards) and i can't recall if the stock trading option was there in the basic version or not.

If relevant I tried the Trading 212 app last night and was very impressed on an initial go with purchase of a large basket of US and UK shares, fractional share options, funds, ETFs etc etc.

Best

[DeLorean75]

Cheib said:

What is the legal position if you’re buying stocks through Revolut ? I use a Revolut card when I am abroad (no not recently)....had no idea they’d ventrured into stock trading. What do they offer exactly ?

Sorry that was unclear. The fact they only do US meant it wasn't useful to me really.

Legal position - no clue

[DeLorean75]

Those of you that have a sub may be interested in this piece in the FT on who pays who

I had no idea Robinhood received so much from marketmakers

https://www.ft.com/content/6651f34a-0d8d-4d68-bdf9...