AJ Bell, the United Kingdom's second-largest listed investment platform, joined the commission-free trading bandwagon this year by introducing its mobile-based investment app dubbed Dodl. A few months after the initial release, which offered trading only with UK-listed stocks, the platform is now expanding its offering with the US shares.
Although the platform is promoting itself as 'zero-fee', customers need to pay a 0.15% annual fee for managing their portfolio and FX costs on overseas shares.
"We want to show that investing needn't be scary, and we won't cease in our aim of making sure that opening an investment account is as easy as possible," Emma Keywood, the Senior Marketing and Product Manager for Doodl, said in a press release.
"We're really excited about continuing that development into the future, with lots more to come as we grow and develop Dodl."
AJ Bell's zero-fee trading app was firstly announced in November 2021 and released in April 2022, offering trading only with UK-listed company stocks. After the current update, customers can trade shares from the United States market. According to the app's creators, this will allow for much better portfolio diversification.
AJ Bell conducted a survey within its customer base, asking which products and new features are on the top of their request list. According to results, US share dealing was placed at the top, amongst the transfer from other pension and Individual Savings Accounts (ISA) providers. Dodl users wanted to trade mainly the biggest brands from Wall Street, including Visa, Nvidia, Coca-Cola, Tesla, Apple, or Disney.
Zero Fees Changed Retail Trading
Before the Covid-19 pandemic started in 2020, there was only one company offering no-fee trading, and it was Robinhood. Almost nine years after Robinhood launched and after two years of lockdowns, the industry has changed for good and every brokerage, from an innovative startup to a major traditional trading company, wants to lure new clients with fee elimination.
Changes and high competitiveness have brought further innovations to the retail trading industry. Brokers and trading platforms started to offer fractional shares trading. Current traders can open new positions without fees and start their trading experience without spending hundreds of dollars on single shares. Instead, they can purchase a 'piece' of every stock with as little as $1.
And, the offering of zero-commission platforms is still expanding. The Dutch online brokerage BUX announced in January that it had enabled cryptocurrency investment for the clients of its flagship platform, BUX Zero.
