We’ve been featured in this story about various stockbrokers in The Telegraph today 
Unfortunately there’s a paywall but you can read X stories for free if you register for an account..
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/shares/invest-no-fees-pay-free-lunch-pipe-dream/amp/
Cool!
Mr Dampier of Hargreaves doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about though! Unless he is getting incorrectly quoted, it sounds like he confused with a challenger stock broker with a differentiated business model and tech stack Vs ETF providers that lend stock.
Sounds like one of those guys that don’t believe traditional big banks can get disrupted!
I wonder if he’s intentionally creating confusion by muddling the points 
I’ve heard Hargreaves on the fintech insider podcast, they must have paid for the episode as it was like an hour long advert! But I think they were on this podcast because as they see the fintech threat as very real…
To me, it read as if he was asked to comment on the ‘free’ aspect, which he alluded to as not being sustainable and in that respect, he’s probably right.
Whether he’s aware of Freetrade’s model including the option for people to pay for immediate trades or for an Alpha account isn’t clear.
Free lunch all the way anyway! 
Of course the incumbent with a 65% profit margin is going to say it can’t be done. It needs to get that cash flowing.
There’s plenty of examples in the world of successful Freemium, or tiered services with paid for components, out there. Spotify, LinkedIn, Slack, and of course the newspaper hosting this article.
Probably not the best example, this company has never made a profit and their sustainability raises questions since there are competitors that manage to profit from music streaming service (Apple to say the least).
But I agree, freemium models are the way to go and 65% profit margin is just unethical!