Trading212 Review

Trading212 is a trading name of Trading212 UK Ltd. and Trading 212 Ltd. The company started as a Bulgarian forex broker more than ten years ago and later it received an FCA license as well. That means client’s funds are kept in a segregated account and are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

We all are aware of ESMA’s decision to increase protection of small investors. It obliges every EU registered broker to keep strict margin requirements such as 3.33% margin for major currency pairs compared to 1% before that. This led brokers to look for ways to bypass these rules. So, the Products section of the website shows there are three types of accounts – Invest, CFDs and ISA (UK only).

Customers can choose the oldest known way of online trading – through CFD but the margin requirements are not so attractive such as they are in non-EU brokers. The minimum deposit amount is just EUR10. Another option for opening an account is the Trading212 invest. What could attract customers is the word zero – zero commission and zero fees. The trading instruments are the same as in the other accounts (more than 3000, the company claims) but here they can be traded as a fraction. In that way you can buy 0.001 shares of Amazon and you don’t need to invest fortune to do that. UK customers can open an individual saving account (ISA) that has the same properties as the investment one but is tax-free.

Trading212 has its own web-based trading platform, so you don’t have to install any additional software, just login and start trading. We recommend trying a demo account before investing real money. The platform offers all the necessary tools for trading, including technical analyses and economic calendar. There is ‘real-time’ news, but the feature cannot be used properly as it is not automatically updated (browser must be refreshed) and there are few lines of news daily.

There is also a mobile app available for download from the Google Play Store and from the App Store that is highly rated and has all the features of the desktop version. However, Trading212 doesn’t offer the MetaTrader platform, which is preferred by more experienced traders.

Another thing to consider is that Trading212 is a market maker. That means it is a counterparty to the client deals and may not forward every deal to other liquidity providers. The company earns money not only from the spread and commission but from the client’s losses, which automatically leads to a conflict of interest. The Order execution policy shows there is no slippage in periods of high volatility, but the company may decline to fulfill the order or will offer a new price. There is a warning that stop loss orders can be executed at the first available price (not the set one).

Trading212 is a global forex broker, regulated by one of the most reliable financial regulators worldwide – the FCA in the UK. The spreads are attractive, there is commission-free trading, the platform is simple but full of features.