Arincen

Item: Trading212
Rating: 6.7

Key Takeaways

Trading212, founded in 2006, is headquartered in the UK.
Trading212 is regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) (No. 609146).
The broker is also authorized and regulated by the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) (No. RG-03-0237) in Bulgaria.
The company has a physical office in the UK, but services clients from as far afield as Chile, China, Italy, and Spain, to mention a few.
Trading212 is compelled to offer protection under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) up to £85,000.
The company also works through the Investors Compensation Fund (ICF) to offer up to €20,000 in compensation to its European clients.
Trading212 offers extensive market access with over 3,500 trading Instruments.
The company claims to have 1.5 million clients and handles £3 billion in client assets.
The broker provides access to markets in such asset classes as FOREX, indices, commodities, and stocks.
Trading212 offers commission-free trading across its account types, which are complemented by average-level spreads.
The broker does not charge withdrawal or deposit fees.
The broker provides clients with access to its proprietary Web-enabled trading platform that also comes in a wildly popular mobile app version.
Trading212 has an adequate research and education section that could be improved.
Trading212 provides 24/5 multilingual customer service to its clientele.

Trading 212 Evaluate - research result

Overall Evaluation 6.74

Regulations

Deposits and Withdrawals

3.5

Commissions

Assets

6.3

Trading Platform

Research and Development

Customer Service

Mobile App Trading

Learning

Experience with broker

7.5

Trading Tools

8.5

Website

Overall Summary

Trading212 is a UK-headquartered broker that was founded in 2006. The company makes claims on its Website to have 1.5 million clients and £3 billion in client assets. The company offers zero-commission stock trading in its primary markets of the UK and Europe.

Other assets the broker offers include equities, commodities, stocks, indices, and a wide range of FOREX pairs. At the time of writing, the broker did not offer access to cryptocurrency trading. The number of global stock and Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) on offer with this broker is thought to be over 10,000.

The company provides traders with access to a proprietary Web-trading interface that comes with a user-friendly mobile app. These tools are much liked by beginners and intermediate traders, even though the broker is not known to offer much in the way of services aimed at professionals.

The company likens itself to a fintech company by promoting its app as an easy-to-use tool of the future that is available free of charge. Despite having a good platform and a wide selection of assets, the broker suffers from a lack of truly advanced trading tools that will place it in the same class as the best emerging brokers.

Trading212 has a physical office in the UK, even though it offers its services in countries as diverse as Argentina, Chile, Mexico, China, Russia, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Germany.

Trading212

Rating

Foundation Year

2004

Main Branch

London

Other Branches

not available

Languages

9 language including english

Work Hours

Market hours

For Whom Is Trading212 Good?

Trading212 makes all the right noises in terms of being a progressive broker that offers the right services to a range of clients. However, if you strip away the promotional material, you can see that the broker has many areas on which it needs to work, leading to our review reflecting more cons than pros:

Pros

Excellent Web-trading platform and mobile app.
Extensive range of over 3,500 financial assets on offer.
Offers good regulation in the form of the tier-one FCA.

Cons

Does not serve US clients.
Does not deal in cryptocurrencies.
Research and education facilities are not at a good level.
Third-party platforms like MetaTrader are not available.
Does not have additional meaningful regulation besides the FCA.
Does not offer social or copy trading.
Swap-free accounts are not available.
Spreads are high.

Is Trading212 Safe?

Trading212 falls short of being called a broker on a strong safety footing. As a UK-headquartered company, the broker is regulated by possibly the pre-eminent tier-one regulator in the world – the FCA (Register number 609146). However, the good news ends there. Yes, the broker is authorized and regulated by the FSC (Register number RG-03-0237) in Bulgaria, but this regulator is not considered a top regulator.

Therefore, if you were to use this broker from another country, off the European mainland, you would not be protected in any way. In more positive news, Trading212 provides negative balance protection, even though this is mandatory as per FCA rules. It also ensures that trader funds are kept in separate bank accounts.

Under the auspices of the FCA, Trading212 is compelled to offer protection under the FSCS up to £85,000. It also works through the ICF to offer up to €20,000 in investor protection to its European clients.

Trading Account Information

Account Currency

USD, EUR.

Minimum Deposit

$10

Segregated Accounts

Yes

Payment Methods

Bank Transfers, Instant Bank Transfers, Credit Cards

America Accepts

Available Markets

FOREX, Commodities, Stocks, Indices, ETFs

Trial Duration

30 Days

Offering of Investments

That said, the extent of this broker’s market access is good compared to other brokerages of a similar size and profile. The broker does its best to offer high-volume traders and institutional partners competitive liquidity, low trading costs, and fast execution. Of course, it does not always manage to achieve these goals, as its spreads can be better.

Additionally, it should be noted that Trading212 does not offer access to cryptocurrency trading, even on a CFD basis. In today’s marketplace, this puts many traders at a disadvantage. However, of the assets the traders does offer, you can take your choice from the following:

Stocks: Traders get access to as many as 1,536 stocks like Tesla and Gamestop.

Indices: Featuring access to a total of 36 indices, you can trade in indices like the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and FTSE 100.

Commodities: You can trade CFDs on 29 commodities, ranging from precious metals to livestock.

FOREX: With a staggering 180 FOREX pairs, you can trade 24/5 from a Web- or mobile-enabled device.

Account Types

The following types of accounts are available at Trading212:

Trading 212 CFD: With this account, you are allowed to trade in CFDs, giving you access to a large portion of the broker’s market access. This popular account type is well-liked by international clients who value its ease-of-use and extensive feature list.

Trading 212 Invest: Here you can trade in stocks and ETFs. You can invest in equities in many products on some of the world’s best-known indices.

Trading 212 ISA: Only available to UK clients, this account allows you to invest on a tax-free basis up to a designated amount.

The minimum deposit required to open an account with this broker is €1 or £1 on the CFD account, and €10 or £10 on the Invest or ISA account. All trades are free of commission, and the rest of the ancillary fees are the same across account types.

Trading212 has set up a professional trading account, for which you will have to prove that you have completed an average of at least 10 trades in each of the last four quarters of the past year. You will also need to prove that you have an investment portfolio made up of cash and financial instruments up to a minimum of €500,000. The benefits of this account are not immediately clear, as this information is shared with traders when they pass the test.

New traders can also open a demo account to practice their trading skills in a risk-free environment. You can test your strategies to see which ones work in the real world. The demo account can be used for up to 30 days, which is restrictive for new traders as you cannot put a timescale on gaining the type of experience required to finesse your trading strategies.

One excellent feature of the Trading212 account types is that you can seamlessly switch between “live” and “practice” accounts during the demo period. This eliminates the need to create two separate accounts. This ability to switch at any time is invaluable as you can run simulations under near real-time conditions as you test what works for you.

Account Opening

Opening an account with Trading212 is easy. Simply visit the company’s official Website, click on register now, or sign up. Thereafter, you will need to fill in your personal details. To verify your account, you need to fulfill the standard Know Your Customer (KYC) process by delivering the necessary documents. Once you have made your first deposit, you can start trading.

Bonuses and Promotions

Bonuses and promotions are discouraged by the FCA. At the time of writing, the broker did not have any active bonuses. However, in the past, it has been known to offer a £50 welcome bonus for making a deposit.

Available assets

Markets	Available	Number of Assets
Currency Pairs		170
Stocks		1536
Commodities		29
Crypto
Indices		36
ETFs		1500

Deposits and Withdrawals

With Trading212, you can open an account in the following currencies: GBP, EUR, RON, PLN, CHF, NOK, SEK, and CZK. Not all these currencies are available in all countries. Normally, available currencies are limited to the EUR and the currency of the country in which the trader lives.

You can get your Trading212 account going with as little as €1 or £1 on a CFD account. For the Trading212 Invest and ISA accounts, you can transact with as little as €10 or £10. The broker supports the following payment methods for deposits and withdrawals:

Bank transfer.
Credit/debit cards.
Skrill.
PayPal.
Dotpay.
Giropay.
Carte Bleue.
Direct eBanking.
Apple Pay.
Google Pay.
iDEAL.

Again, not all methods are available in every country. You are advised to check what is available where you live. Trading 212 deposits are usually free of any fees, except for when using the bank wire transfer method, where bank fees can apply. Also, if you make a deposit in a currency that is not supported, a 0.5% currency conversion fee applies.

Withdrawals can take up to 48 hours to process. In the case of the Trading212 CFD account, you must withdraw at least $10 or €10, according to company rules, and in the case of a Trading212 account, you must withdraw at least $1 or €1. Withdrawals are typically free.

Advantages of Trading

Maximum Leverage

1:500

Minimum Lot Size

0.01 Lot

Available FOREX Pairs

170 Currency pairs

Scalping

Yes

Hedging

Yes

Spread

Starts from 0.1 points

Trailing Stop

Yes

Islamic Account

Trading Platforms

Private Platform

Regulatory Bodies

FCA

Broker Type

STP

Customer Service

This broker has a highly responsive customer service team with an advertised average response time of just 47 seconds. You can access customer service 24/5 in a variety of languages, including English, Italian, Polish and Romanian, among others. To reach the customer service agents, you can use email, telephone, and live chat via the Website when it is enabled. If you prefer to read the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), you can find a detailed set of answers to common questions on the broker’s Website.

Commissions and Fees

Trading212 offers commission-free FOREX, shares, and ETF trading. As there is no commission, you must pay spreads when trading CFDs and FOREX, which can be fixed or floating and start from one pip. While the broker claims its spreads are competitive, in our view, they are on the high side.

To compound this, the broker does not reveal its average spread, which would help to classify its pricing for popular FOREX pairs, such as the EUR/USD. By not showing its average spread, the broker could be accused of omitting key market information that disadvantages its clients. Many of Trading212’s peers have no hesitation sharing this information, possibly because they can stand by their spreads.

Note, there is a currency conversion fee of 0.15% if your trade is not in the same currency as your account currency. There are no fees for deposit, withdrawal, or inactivity. If you work through a Trading 212 CFD account, then you can expect to pay an overnight fee. This is due each day at the closing time of the market and can be confirmed on the trading platform interface, which carries the most accurate and up-to-date charges calculated on prevailing interest rates.

Leverage

Leverage is determined by the regulator in each jurisdiction. European traders with Trading212 will be subject to strictly controlled leverage levels up to 30:1 for major currencies. Traders should be aware to use this leverage with discretion, as they can suffer dramatic losses if they do not practice caution.

Platforms and Tools

Trading212 provides its clients access to a proprietary Web-based trading platform on which traders can carry out multi-asset trading. The interface is well-designed and simple, even boasting its own Google Chrome plugin. The broker has spent time and effort getting its platform up to an excellent standard and it rightly ranks it as one of its strongest features. Once on this platform, you can trade on either of the main account types – Invest and CFD.

The broker’s platform comes with a strong charting program and integrated news headlines. In our review, we found it a big benefit that the Website will cache your login details so you can be automatically logged in when you go to the platform from your Web browser.

With regard to charting, you can select from among five different types, giving you a window to 45 indicators, in addition to 19 drawing tools. One of the best features is that you can create and save personalized chart templates for future use. One drawback is that you will have to consult the economic calendar manually to plan for major data releases as these are not natively built into the interface, unlike other platforms. You can line up trades in many ways and perform a range of operations on the same trading pair simultaneously.

While older platforms like MT4 might be more feature-rich and enjoy a greater degree of recognizability, there is a case to be made that a modern and minimalist design that takes care of the most important elements a trader could need is a welcome change. If you can get over your attachment to MT4 and MT5, you will start to enjoy the Trading212 platform.

Mobile Trading

The Trading212 mobile app is highly popular, having been downloaded over 10 million times. Available on Android and iOS devices, this purpose-built mobile app offers excellent functionality, including the ability to carry out trades from visualizations, something many other apps cannot do. The user experience is consistently superior, with plain navigation and intuitive visualizations.

The app carries educational videos for newbies, which is a blessing and a curse as they are perfect for newbies, but they do not offer much for elite traders. Unlike the Web version, the mobile app has a detailed economic calendar that clearly highlights upcoming dates for the most traded assets. You can create helpful watchlists that automatically sync with the web platform.

Research and Development

Trading 212 provides a good amount of market analysis across several instruments daily. It must be pointed out that the research material is rather sparse in number of resources and shallow in depth. You can find a detailed economic calendar that is always helpful. The technical analysis for common tradable assets is adequate but not spectacular.

Education

As far as education goes, this section is slightly better as it contains a dedicated YouTube channel that features helpful guides and tutorials for all levels of traders. In total, we counted well over 150 educational videos for you to browse. You will find it helpful that many of the videos are embedded in its Web and mobile platform.

To bolster the learning sections, you will find helpful posts in the community forum on the Website, as well as FAQ. While these features are all to be praised, the overall education section lacks some of the advanced features of other brokers, such as curated materials by experience level and a clearly laid out learning pathway for newbies and intermediate traders alike.

Final Thoughts

Trading212 is an up-and-coming broker that has found a niche through its proprietary trading platform. It is regulated by a sole tier-one regulator, meaning that it offers clients access to a compensation scheme in case it ever goes insolvent. That said, many will feel the broker is under-regulated as it only provides this protection to traders in its UK and European markets. With powerful market access and a good selection of account types from which to choose, beginner to intermediate traders can be satisfied that this broker caters to their needs.

The broker has a lightweight research section that is filled with a smattering of market research material that will leave information-hungry traders wanting more. Its multilingual customer service desk is available 24/5 and is staffed by knowledgeable agents. In all, this is a broker that can be trusted to serve its main clientele well, even though it lacks in some areas, such as fees and research.

Conclusion

Trading212 has some work to do when it comes to offering better spreads for its clientele. Despite that, its innovative proprietary platform is much enjoyed by traders, particularly the mobile app, which has been downloaded over 10 million times.

The broker does not make its value proposition very clear to elite traders, even though it offers a professional account. It does not do a convincing job of telling would-be professional traders that its execution speeds or liquidity levels are better than anywhere else.

Trading212 in Brief

Trading212’s overall offering is adequate for a UK or European client who wants to experience a different trading platform from the standard MetaTrader products. Its fees are not very competitive; however, it boasts good market access. That said, with the growing number of cryptocurrency traders on the market, not being able to offer access to this popular asset class is a big blow.

Review Methodology

The team at Arincen collected more than 120 pieces of data covering in excess of 100 licensed FOREX companies. Data collection was done in three ways:

Companies’ Websites.
Other Websites that have ranked FOREX companies.
A survey questionnaire (referred to here as Survey “1”) we had sent to the companies invited to participate in the exercise.

We have identified 12 criteria for our assessment, each containing several aspects and carrying its own relative weight. These include licensing, deposits and withdrawals, number of assets etc.
Afterward we validated the data by:

Registering with FOREX companies as a secret shopper and/or as Arincen.
Survey number “2,” in which we asked these companies’ customers for important feedback and past experience.

The next step saw us evaluate and rank each company, relying on the hard work of 15 Arincen employees. We were very careful in ensuring the most accurate assessment possible, including taking into account different languages, as well as the various mobile-app operating systems, e.g., Apple, Samsung etc.

To add credibility to our research project, we sent a final and third survey (referred to here as Survey “3”) to enable participating FOREX companies evaluate our own research and whether it accurately reflects the realities on the ground. We were fortunate enough to receive a mark of 9.9 out of 10! We have kept to a minimum the margin of error, which stood at a measly 1%. To learn more on how we came up with the evaluation, please click here.