Couple of questions from my side:
- First question for FT would be on Europe.
What is FTâs angle for Europe now?
If I read the last messages correctly from the FT team the plan is to do a EU-wide release of the app in its current state first. Also, at this point if we use Sweden as a reference for speed of execution it will take multiple years to release local tax wrappers for other countries in the EU.
The way I see it right now the FTâs current offering is not superior to what is already offered in the main EU markets and in some cases is more expensive.
TR, T212, Bux 0, LY, Rev just to point to those most similar to FT with mobile app first approach, have been around for some time already in the EU capitalising on âlow hangingâ customers.
There are older players with deep pockets Degiro, Etoro, Saxo being the closest to FT.
There is also a potential new entrant which is very strong in the US - Webull.
And there are a massive number of old banks/brokers that are not sleeping and working on improving their offerings.
What is the uniqueness of FTâs offering for Europe right now? What is the main selling point? E.g. If you ask me the same question for UK right now - would answer SIPP + easy to use app + community forum
The only historical data point we have is a 2k waitlist in Sweden. Hard to interpret it. If we take 30k waitlist for UK (early 2018) then accounting for population difference we should be around 5k in Sweden, however this is not apples to apples as the FT app is far more developed than it was in 2018. The Swedish part of the community forum is dead silent if it is another sign of interest.
The recent comment from Viktor on how to launch Europe with a low marketing spend from the community surprised me a lot!! (FT share price thread on the forum):
Adam himself pointed to the competition being more interesting on the continent in May this year.
Is there a clear plan to fight competitors sitting on PFOF or CFD revenue streams? Are you aware that you have crazily well-funded competitors on the continent with extremely competitive products (referring to Viktorâs comments above)? Launch and see approach would have cut it in 2018 when FT started to discuss the expansion plans (EU expansion thread on the forum started in mid 2018), but we are in a completely different game now.
Would love to hear a clear plan for Europe. EU-wide app + âlocalisation in some EU markets that we will not reveal just yetâ is not enough imho. Also unless FT clearly articulates the competitive advantage of FT compared to other players in Europe I donât understand how one could be bullish on FTâs launch in Europe today.
FT unfortunately has so far been unable to demonstrate that they can execute UK and Europe, simultaneously (Adamâs explanation on slow pace of the product development in the UK was working on European infra, also letâs forget for the moment that Canada and Australia were supposed to launch as well). I am worried that EU will turn out to be just a drag on the FTâs consolidated financials, drag on ressources (via localisation of the product for some markets and developing localised parts of the app for the EU) and will result in low number of customers since the value proposition of the product vs competitors is unclear.
- Crypto
What is the stage of development of the crypto product? If the regulator says yes tomorrow is the product ready to launch? If not, what is % progress on the development. Can the details of the offering be shared?
Many were under impression that the only bottleneck for Sweden and EU was the licence which turned out to be not true.