The beauty @rehpot is we now let you do both! Those who prefer standing orders are still able to continue doing so.
We know that while some people are comfortable setting up a standing order by copying details across from the Freetrade app to their banking app, quite a few of our customers drop out of this flow and elect not to continue because of the friction involved. On top of this, we have a long-running issue which we are waiting for Lloyds to resolve as standing orders from customers with Lloyds banking group are not picked up by us - see MEGATHREAD: Standing orders - #35 by latarzanla.
The benefits of Direct Debit are that customers can set these up easily via the Freetrade app. We then have visibility of this (unlike standing orders) and are able to provide this to customers within the app as well as the ability to manage their Direct Debit. This is important as we build out Autopilot and enable customers to set-up and manage recurring investments end-to-end all within Freetrade.