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Comment by gerogerke | Hacker News Reader

I have been using N26 as my daily driver for the last year, and I really don't want to look back at any bank that is using branches. However, I feel N26, Revolut, Monzo, Tomorrow, and all of the others are driving customers away with very expensive "premium" plans.

I recently opened an account with DKB, another German direct bank, but with a shitty app. They offer everything I paid N26 5,90€ month to month (which they raised to 9,90€, can you imagine that) and much more like overnight money and a stock depot, for the tradeoff of having a shitter app, which is basically a webview loading their webpage.

The next thing Europe needs is a Robinhood-like app for fee-free trading.

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> The next thing Europe needs is a Robinhood-like app for fee-free trading.

Definitely. For generic Europeans wanting to invest in stock market you don't have much choice. There are couple of archaic and/or dodgy brokers with shitty apps (or no apps at all, just some bad websites built decade ago an never upgraded).

You can use Interactive Brokers UK even if not based there. It's the best consumer-oriented broker available anywhere.

I've looked at a lot of brokers and the choice is overwhelming. Interactive Brokers UK didn't stand out, except for using branding that gives deceiving impressions on who it's regulated by. A more common example is falsely posturing to be regulated by Swiss. I'm not sure why present yourself as a UK brokerage, when in fact you're US regulated.

Anyway, why do you hold IB to be best consumer-oriented broker available anywhere?

Edit: Actually I was looking at forex brokers, stocks is probably different in that a lot of people want access to the US market.

IB is the largest retail broker with access to most global exchanges. I'm not sure there are any competitors in the same league so it's hard to compare.

Do you work for them?

I'd prefer something easy to use with quick onramp like RobinHood. I had tried to register with IB UK, their registration process was super complex with many pages of information needed and in the middle of me filling the registration form their server went down and I lost whatever I have filled in already. I settled down for buying stocks via my bank account which has some archaic broker, it costs 11 pounds per transaction so it incentivises me to only do few bigger trades and to hold for a long time I guess.

> For generic Europeans wanting to invest in stock market you don't have much choice. There are couple of archaic and/or dodgy brokers with shitty apps (or no apps at all, just some bad websites built decade ago an never upgraded).

What's wrong with Degiro[1], founded in 2013, and available in 18 European countries?

[1] https://www.degiro.eu/

I've been paying €4.90 for N26 Black since it was released. I can say that it is definitely not worth €9.90. I wonder if my price will end up increasing.

Degiro has very competitive fees for trading.

TransferWise has significantly better fees than Revolut for currency conversion and also offers a card.

> TransferWise has significantly better fees than Revolut for currency conversion and also offers a card.

Do you have a few data points by chance?

I have both cards and I'm trying to figure it out (mostly for CHFEUR). At first glance it seems that TransferWise fees give you a rate that is as good or a little better than MasterCard (Visa is typically quite a bit more expensive). Also during weekends, TansferWise should beat Revolut. However when FX markets are open, it's not clear (mid-market + fee with TW, bid/ask rates with Revolut afaik).

I always found transfer.xe.com far cheaper than transferwise. Though it might depend on the currency you are converting to.

When I tried to convert EUR to ZAR, they wanted 25€ in flat fees, a percentage and had a worse conversion rate than xe who had no fees and a better conversion rate.

> The next thing Europe needs is a Robinhood-like app for fee-free trading.

Revolut is working on this one I believe. :)

There is also Freetrade.

> The next thing Europe needs is a Robinhood-like app for fee-free trading.

Would it give a percentage of every transaction to assorted charities instead? Steal from the rich, give to the poor, after all.

Only if you have too much money on your account. It would do a median and punish those with median*100 balances.

Freetrade, Revolut and Trading212 do Robinhood in Europe

Neither Monzo nor Starling charges for a current account.

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