eToro, a multi-asset social trading platform, announced this Wednesday that it would soon offer zero commissions for its customers in the United Kingdom buying or selling stocks on its platform.
When other companies in the industry have announced similar initiatives, they have removed the commission when trading stocks and instead, increased spreads. This nullifies any benefits, as instead of paying a commission they are paying more fees.
However, in eToro’s announcement today, it has clarified that it will not add any charges to the raw market spread when trading stocks.
Iqbal Gandham, MD at eToro
Source: LinkedIn
Commenting on the announcement, Iqbal V. Gandham, UK Managing Director at eToro said: “We’re on a mission to get Britain investing. First step, make it far more affordable."
"If I’m a first time investor wanting to buy a few stocks, how can you justify charging me 3% to do so? Either the new investor baulks at the outset, or is stung later down the line when they discover the cost."
"It’s an instant barrier to investing. So we’re making it simple - no transaction fees, no mark-up on spreads, no custody charge, and no stamp duty.”
eToro Joins Small Group of Zero-Commission Stock Trading Providers
With this latest announcement, the retail trading provider joins a small group of brokers who offer commission-free trading. At present this group consists of JFD Brokers, who only launched zero-free stock trading last month, Trading 212, a London-headquartered brokerage who launched commission free trading in the Forex and CFD brokerage space in September 2018 and BUX, a trading application.
Commission-free trading is a recent innovation in the FX and CFD space, which was in part due to recent regulatory restrictions by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) which has forced brokers to change-up the offered product mix.
With this move, it appears that eToro, like JFD Brokers and Trading 212 did before, is betting that physical stock trading will play a larger role in the sector. However, eToro has not specified exactly when it will launch zero-commissions on its Trading Platform .
