When are Freetrade launching something similar? 
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[/spoiler] [spoiler]
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If chasing interest rates then the U.K. dividend etf might be a good bet at this time, has seen a large drop (tell me about it) but pays a good dividend and who knows, maybe bottomed … personally it is part of my portfolio and I wish I had funds to top it up, but will have to wait until end of January.
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Cool they have been talking about this for a while. At 3% it’s nearly a whole percent higher than Marcus offers in the US. Should be interesting to see how this develops, from what I’ve read Robinhood’s offer will be limited from January 2019 on a “first-come, first-serve”, so after that the rate might change.
Revolut ( the other fintech hoping to become the Amazon of Personal Finance ) gained a European Banking license today.
I’m not sure if I’d want one financial organisation to manage everything though.
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The American flag card design is awesome! Freedom! 
3% is really attractive, powered most likely by its margin lending business and the relatively high USD Libor rate (relative to the last ten years). Wonder what happens when the bottom falls out of the market… There must be a small disclaimer note somewhere that they can change the rate without notice.
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Their official checking account product page
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Would be interesting to be a fly on the wall to hear what Adam et al makes of this.
Before then, holding out for challenger bank marketplace integrations.
@stephen interesting insight; although interest rates from lending and income investing from stocks are 2 different ball games in terms of risk-return.
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Bit of a kick to Monzo and its US expansion plans
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I don’t think it’s great news for anyone who’s providing banking services or planning to, in the US!
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Possibly but it could also normalise app based banking making it easier for them in the long run
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Might have to wait a little longer before becoming a Monzo millionaire 
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Interestingly deposited funds might not actually be protected 
SIPC Says It Has Serious Concerns About Robinhood’s New Product - Bloomberg
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It’s an interesting move. If the future is for banks and stockbrokers to live in the same app then it must increase the chance of Freetrade being acquired or the possibility that Freetrade would become a bank eventually.
Is it Freetrade’s intent to ultimately become a bank?
“The statute that we administer says that we protect money with a brokerage firm that is used for the purchase of securities,” he added. “On Robinhood’s help page, it says that you don’t need to invest to use Robinhood checking and savings, that statement is wrong. If you deposit money for any other purpose, it is not protected.”
I’m not a lawyer (shockingly) but figuring out a user’s intent for their deposits seems like a bit of a grey area. It’ll be interesting to see whether the SIPC agrees.
This 
(from the same reporter) shouldn’t surprise anyone though, which makes me wonder whether they’re trying to make something out of nothing here
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Mmm… Do I smell a more compelling reason for a JV in the future with…Mon.@ 
Hey SIPC, my portfolio is suffering at the moment what with Brexit etc. as a result I am sitting on about 8% loss - can I have that back?
Cheers
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“Robinhood would be buying securities for its account and sharing a portion of the proceeds with their customers, and that’s not what we cover”
Robinhood co-CEO Baiju Bhatt told me that “Robinhood invests users’ checking and savings money into government-grade assets like US treasuries and we collect yield from those assets and pay that back to customers in the form of 3 percent interest.”
But Harbeck tells me that means users would effectively be loaning Robinhood their money, and the SIPC doesn’t cover loans. If a market downturn caused the values of those securities to decline and Robinhood couldn’t cover the losses, the SIPC wouldn’t necessarily help users get their money back.
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Sounds pretty yucky to me and total misselling of product… this ain’t a savings product at all.
US 10 year is close to 3% but depending on the economic situation it could easily go either way. I’m also guessing their not moving up the curve for better yield so probably staying around the 3 month to 1 year.
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