Trade Republic, a German startup, is debuting its new app in France this week, a report from Tech Crunch says, expanding on the company’s previous work in Austria and Germany.
With Trade Republic, users are able to buy and sell shares or exchange-traded funds from a mobile fund with low and transparent fees.
The company charges €1 per order in fees. That’s whether one has bought a single share worth €100 or allocated €10,000 on an ETF, Tech Crunch writes.
According to Trade Republic, the company doesn’t add anything else on top of that commission. The startup allows the purchase of European shares alongside Asian or American companies, and there are 7,500 shares and ETFs on the app.
Tech Crunch notes that French users should specify that they have a foreign bank account when filing taxes, as foreign brokers don’t always send the information to tax authorities to pre-fill the reports each year.
Trade Republic raised a €62 million Series B funding round last year, which was co-led by Accel and Founder’s Fund.
The company has tried to distance itself from Robinhood through a new “third way” of running this type of app. The report notes that most people either open an account with their bank or legacy broker or use a mobile broker. The first option could come with lots of charges, while the second could result in a push towards risky assets and day trading.
With Trade Republic, the report says there’s less risk, and the company promotes things like savings plans.
Robinhood has faced a backlash in recent days for shutting down popular and volatile securities like GameStop which were targeted by Reddit users to be boosted and buck against the bets of hedge funds that believed they would fail. Two separate lawsuits have been filed criticizing the mobile app for allegedly prioritizing big hedge funds and Wall Street over its users.
