I also have an account with Freetrade, but more on that later. Launched in the UK in 2016, it stood out with commission‑free trading, an intuitive web and mobile interface and full FCA regulation. I first joined Hargreaves Lansdown around 2014, when brokers charged up to £11.95 per trade. If you traded often or in small amounts, those fees could quickly erode your returns. Uninvested cash within the platform earns an Annual Equivalent Rate (AER) that is variable.
Support Contact Methods And Working Hours
ETFs, or exchange traded funds, are funds which are listed on the stock exchange. Just like regular funds these can be based around a theme or industry, for example fintech, or manufacturing. This actually happened to me with pharmaceutical stock I had been trading on HL. When I switched to Trading 212, the stock wasn’t available, so I contacted them about it, and the stock was added a few days later. If there is a stock you are interested in that isn’t yet covered, you can contact Trading 212, and they will consider adding it to the platform if the demand is high enough. New investors are usually encouraged to invest in funds https://traderoom.info/is-trading212-a-reliable-brokerage-firm/ or indices, but if you’re interested in expanding your range of investments, Trading 212 has you well covered.
#3 Choose Your Account Type
By contrast, IB’s interface (in 2023) resembles 1993’s release of Microsoft Windows 3.11. CFDs are leveraged trades, and it’s easy to lose more than you expect if you don’t fully understand how they work. You can start with £1 and deposit up to £20,000 each tax year. Uninvested cash earns 4.05% AER, often higher than many cash ISAs. I’m a financial journalist and have used Trading 212 for more than eight years. In that time I’ve invested over £40,000 via the Invest account and Stocks and Shares ISA, earned thousands in returns and interest, and taken a few losses on CFDs.
Trading 212 takes auto investing to the next level with the introduction of Pies. A pie is a collection of stocks or ETFs, each represented as a slice of the pie. You can hold up to 50 stocks in a pie and have multiple pies all based around various themes, or risk levels.
Trading 212 offers Invest, CFD, and ISA accounts for stocks, ETFs, and leveraged CFD trading. A lot of platforms have an auto invest function, some such as HL are even free (only UK stocks, ETFs, and funds). Users can purchase portions of shares, broadening access to high-priced stocks. Investors may select ready-made portfolios or pies based on different risk levels. These tools allow users to automatically sell assets if values drop below or rise above preset thresholds. An in-app learn section introduces essential trading concepts.
Swap Fee at Trading 212
Trading 212 serves clients worldwide, with operations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region. As of 2025, the company reports having approximately 4.5 million users with funded accounts.
Exchange traded funds (ETFs)
This is where you learn how to use Trading 212 and get to grips with buying and selling stocks. You get £50,000 in virtual funds to test trades, chart tools and order types before using real money. Today you can use Trading 212 to deal in shares, ETFs, CFDs, commodities and forex. Direct cryptocurrency trading is no longer offered here – if crypto is your focus, I’d point you towards a specialist like eToro.
What trading platforms are supported?
All trades are commission-free across Invest, ISA, and CFD accounts. You can trade Forex, stocks, ETFs, indices, commodities, and treasuries (13,000+ symbols). The broker offers a proprietary platform (web + mobile) with TradingView-powered charts.
Many of these are available to some degree in other platforms, so I’ll use this section to cover the most popular, and important features, found on Trading 212. There’s also an overnight fee if you hold a position open for more than a day. You can see the full breakdown on Trading 212’s CFD pricing page.
Non-Trading Fees at Trading 212
- An in-app learn section introduces essential trading concepts.
- This revenue model has been criticised by some as potentially leading to conflicts of interest.
- I first joined Hargreaves Lansdown around 2014, when brokers charged up to £11.95 per trade.
- The platform features TradingView-powered charting with 100+ indicators and intuitive drawing tools.
- You can trade Forex, stocks, ETFs, indices, commodities, and treasuries (13,000+ symbols).
One of the features that helped Trading 212 to grow as much as it has done is its ‘free fractional shares’ offer. Another new feature of Trading 212 is the share lending program. This is a way to make additional returns from shares you are holding long term.
There’s a whole section on the Trading 212 community boards, discussing and sharing pies. The cool thing about pies is that if you see a pie you like created by someone else, you can copy it, and add it your own portfolio, or share your pie for others to copy. Trading 212 on the other hand is straight forward and intuitive. In fact, it’s been criticised for almost being too easy, making trading seem more game-like and thus detaching users from the risks involved when trading. Compared to HL, IG and Vanguard, Trading 212 offers a clean, simple, easy-to-use interface.
The minimum deposit is $1 for Invest/ISA accounts and $10 for CFD accounts. Across the UK and European markets, the company has been celebrated for its low-cost structure, user-friendly platform, and commitment to empowering everyday investors. While Trading 212 doesn’t offer a traditional copy trading feature, unlike some other brokers, it does provide some interesting investment options. Trading 212 provides withdrawal options for major currencies with generally no broker fees. Processing typically takes up to three business days, though bank procedures or currency conversions may affect timing. Other than the variable spreads and other fees mentioned above, there are no costs for inactivity periods, deposits, and withdrawals.
- One of the features that helped Trading 212 to grow as much as it has done is its ‘free fractional shares’ offer.
- So those looking to invest in more obscure stocks may need to use an additional platform or request said stocks to be added to Trading 212.
- Trading 212 provides withdrawal options for major currencies with generally no broker fees.
It’s pretty common to keep somewhere between 5-15% of your investment portfolio in cash. That doesn’t need to be in an investment app, it could be in an easy access savings account (see our guide to the best easy access digital savings accounts). The screen shot below shows a limit order on BP shares, which will buy BP shares if/when the price drops to 548.3p at some point during the current trading day. When it comes to order execution Trading 212 offers comprehensive stops and limits options. Other platforms offer these too, but the implementation in Trading 212 is probably the cleanest and easiest I’ve come across. Trading 212 has all of the usual features you’d expect from a top trading platform.
The platform also offers a comprehensive Help Centre on its website, which includes answers to frequently asked questions and detailed explanations of its features and services. Overall though the fees are still much lower than any traditional platform in the UK, and compare well, if not better than its peers. I actually found that the spreads were better or equal to many of the more established trading platforms, so Trading 212 must be making its money in a different way. In addition to earning interest on uninvested cash, Trading 212 now offers a debit card that you can use to access the money in your invest account.
