Freetrade is Out 🔥 Share your first thoughts once you get access!

[Andy]

Notifications for money in would be amazing as it seems quite sporadic when money actually goes live.

[emalb]

This needs to be more obvious. I gained access to the app last night and attempted to deposit, but was concerned by the potential for errors in the manual process, so I only deposited a pound. It’s not showing in the app twelve hours later.

I’ve had to scroll through loads of this thread to understand why.

This makes me think there needs to be a few changes relating to deposits.

1: Make it possible to deposit using some method that’s simple and easy, such as Apple Pay, Paypal, etc. (I know this may be a non-starter due to fees, but perhaps it’ll become more viable in the long run.)

2: Use an easy reference instead of the current ones. Are they cryptic for a security reason? It’s so easy to enter djfudy638583 incorrectly when you have to memorise it and switch to your banking app, where you may have to go through a login process before you can enter it. Could it be two or three randomly selected words instead? (From a whitelist.)

3: In the deposit screen in your app it says, “Your cash will arrive within two hours.” Can you change this to something more accurate? Maybe you could say, “Your cash will arrive within two hours if you deposit during UK business hours or the next business day otherwise.” or perhaps make the text say different things depending on the time of day, so it remains as it is if you access that screen during the day, but says something different at night.

4: Make it normal for deposits to go through within two hours, day or night.

If the requirement for some manual processing of deposits is temporary then you can disregard the above, but if it will always be necessary then this is going to get expensive in customer support terms and/or lose you customers.

[Freetrade_Team1 (Freetrade_Team)]

Thanks for this feedback!

@emalb

In the deposit screen in your app it says, “Your cash will arrive within two hours.” Can you change this to something more accurate?

We’re in the process of adding that to the app now.

@emalb

Make it possible to deposit using some method that’s simple and easy, such as Apple Pay, Paypal, etc. (I know this may be a non-starter due to fees, but perhaps it’ll become more viable in the long run.)

Unfortunately this isn’t viable because of the cost -

@Freetrade_Team1

It currently costs Monzo £4m a year in fees to 3rd parties to provide debit card top ups.

Due to this, we’ve changed our plans so users will need to top up by bank transfer / standing order, in order to fund their Freetrade account.

Open Banking should let us build functionality to enable you to trigger a bank transfer from your bank account to your Freetrade account in the future

Besides that, those are some really good suggestions for us to consider

[Rat_au_van (Emma)]

Could priority in adding funds be considered as an additional Alpha feature when it’s launched? So Alpha users get their funds cleared before basic users. Not sure how feasible that is but thought I’d throw it out there

[fun_coupons]

For point 2) I did the same as you i.e. Switch back and forth and manually type. I’m a triple-checker. However, i just realised we can just hold down and copy the reference via the top up screen in the FT app. Hope that helps (unless your banking app doesn’t allow pasting for whatever reason - Monzo does ).

[fun_coupons]

Few more thoughts from testing:

• Withdrawal test successful
• when i go back from the Review Trade screen and adjust the investment amount, only one digit is displayed after the £ symbol. So, 100 shows as 0 with the other digits cut off.
  
  
• Whenever stamp duty is required, the screen is cut off at the bottom and i cannot scroll down to see additional details.
  
  
• Under each stock, where it has “Recent Activity”, it would help to also see any queued orders for that stock.

[Jim_mcgrain (Jim)]

The Withdrawal process needs work I think - upon withdrawal this message appears;

However your ‘Withdrawable Cash’ amount is not updated accordingly and no record of the pending withdrawal is shown in ‘Activity’, in effect requiring you to keep your own record out with the app.

ETA : just noticed also raised by @Vlad Withdrawal Issue

[Viktor]

@emalb

It’s so easy to enter djfudy638583 incorrectly when you have to memorise it and switch to your banking app, where you may have to go through a login process before you can enter it. Could it be two or three randomly selected words instead? (From a whitelist.)

I quite like it. I haven’t checked whether it’s possible with the team yet, but this is about the reference being memorable, right?

E.g. ‘forceful termite skateboard’ and similar memorable word groups (ideally with easy spelling).

[bally101]

Made it finally on the app. I know we are at an early stage but one thing that is a little painful is not having the ability to just put money into my account from my card ? I guess this may be a development moving forward but having to go into my bank account and transfer the cash and wait for 2 hours is not ideal, one of the reasons I like IG is that I can just put cash straight into my account from my card real time.
Is that something that will come with time ?

Cheers

Alex

[HoddzDJ (Ben #88)]

Is IG free to use?

[Dave (Dave Smith)]

@HoddzDJ

Is IG free to use?

No, they charge Commission on Share trades, the spread betting has interest charges on margin I think

[ivobivo]

Good job guys! UX and design look nice.

[saf]

Version 427 of the app with the improved Activity Feed has landed - not seeing the cancelled/failed is a massive improvement.

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I really like how quickly you are moving with the app.

[stephen]

It’s so much more beautiful now!

[HoddzDJ (Ben #88)]

I guess I need to have more activity to see these improvements, time to load up with some more spends

[Freetrade_Team1 (Freetrade_Team)]

@stelstyl

I don’t know if it’s something in my settings but I didn’t get any notifications. For example, I would like to see some notifications when new money has arrived into my account or when the trade is done (or rejected) at 4pm.

We don’t have notifications yet (apart from letting you know when you reach the top of the waiting list ) but you can vote for more here ☑ [Feature Request 🔧] Notifications - Push ( Mobile App ) + E-Mail.

@stelstyl

Are there any plans to make the top up process faster? I didn’t like the fact that I had to wait about 2 hours for my money to arrive.

We’re writing a blog post to explain the situation & our plans for top-ups at the moment.

@stelstyl

• One of my transactions at 4pm had been rejected and I didn’t get any reason for that. I think there should be a clear reason there why the transaction has been rejected.

Agreed!

@stelstyl

Also, when a transaction at 4pm is rejected is a bit frustrating because I should wait for the next day at 4pm if I want to buy the shares for free, or I have to pay the extra fee for the instant trade. Are you looking to reduce those “rejections” or insist more trials until the transaction succeeds?

We definitely want to reduce the number of rejections. Explaining how these orders work more clearly & why they were rejected should help a lot. At the moment avoiding rejections is the focus, rather than retrying failed orders.

[emalb]

That’s cool. I didn’t notice because I was having my first look at Freetrade while “working”.

Perhaps the devs could put a “Copy” icon next to the reference to encourage people to realise it’s copyable and then to actually copy it for them with a single tap.

[Andy]

I had a trade that rejected at 4pm when others went through fine.

I reached out to support and apparently this was because the price didn’t come back.

There should be better information about why this happens and it should be explained better than just rejected.

[awjdean]

@emalb

Could it be two or three randomly selected words instead? (From a whitelist.)

Using a sequence of random words for the reference is a great idea.

[mk_1 (Michelle)]

Absolutely loving the app and enjoying finding my feet with investments. However have made a few orders forgetting to switch to basic trades. It would be good if basic trades were a default.

Regards