Robinhood, the commission-free trading application, is coming out with a UK-based division after the FCA has given them the go-ahead to do so.
The US-based app was founded back in 2013 by Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt. Their goal was to become an accessible platform for day trading stocks, shares, and eventually cryptocurrencies. As of today, Robinhood is valued at $7.6 billion.
However, according to Altfi, Robinhood might not make it as big in the United Kingdom right away as it has in the States. In fact, the European space has seen a ton of competitors appearing years before Robinhood has made its mark. Freetrade is one such platform, going live in 2018. Revolut is another, which is expanding into the United States and holding around 6 million users.
According to the publication, another competitor based in Australia, Stake, also plans to go live in the United Kingdom.
Wander Rutgers, the President of the brand new Robinhood International, commented on the matter:
“Today marks the beginning of a new chapter for Robinhood, and we’re excited to take the first important step towards bringing our investing platform to customers in the UK.”
The President is experienced in the Fintech space, once working at Plum being head of the investing and savings product. Before that, Rutgers worked at TransferWise, where he led the operations and compliance teams.
Robinhood didn’t give us a date for its UK expansion, but there are tons of jobs available on its board, the publication reports.
A couple of weeks ago, Robinhood raised $323 million in Series E funding, bringing it to the $7.6 billion number. Funds like DST Global, Thrive Capital, and NEA participated in the funding rounds.
The company blew past expectations, which predicted it would only hit $123 million. This news comes months after Robinhood revealed that it would launch a checking account with a 3% interest on savings.
