Hi Freetrade team and community,
First time posting here after lurking around for a while. Anyway, let me get to the point.
Freetrade was my first investing app and I believed it was a great choice. I used it to buy my first stocks and I watched it grow. Over time, I started to become a fanboy of Freetrade as well. But as I started to learn more about investing, I feel like Freetrade doesn’t provide as much it’s competitors. To be honest, I’ve had thoughts about transferring my account and/or use a new platform when the new financial year begins (ISA related). But I want to stick with Freetrade.
Here are some of my concerns:
- S&S ISA fee - I don’t mind the £3 fee as Freetrade does need to make money somehow. But I am jealous that some competitors provide this account for free.
- Stock Price - Stock prices takes a long time to update. Especially in the morning when the market opens. I tried a competitors platform and theirs updated very quickly. I believe this is something you’re working on?
- Plus - I think the introduction to Plus has not been a favourable move. I feel like there are more negative responses to it from the community. I personally won’t be buying Freetrade Plus anytime soon because I don’t think I’ll get my money’s worth.
- Roadmap - Something I liked before was the roadmap. It was on Trello and it was updated regularly (maybe because it was used internally rather than for public only?). The new roadmap [Building Freetrade] is not the same. I feel like it’s not updated as often and the details are vague.
- Managing Multiple stocks & FX rate - As I invest in more stocks and ETFs, I feel like it gets harder to manage, rebalance stocks, especially non-USA stocks and ETFs without fractional shares. I tried a competitor’s Pie and Auto-Invest feature and that made life so much easier. I wanted to explore different investing strategies to learn more (e.g. Dividend, Value, Growth, Core-Satellite and so on…) and that made it easier. Currently, I have built an advanced-ish spreadsheet that can calculate what I should buy and sell to keep my stocks and ETFs balanced. But on the competitor’s platform, I just had to change the percentages (if needed) and then click a button to rebalance the portfolio/pie. I’m also concerned about the 0.45% fee. I’m not sure how much damage it’s doing. Again from my understanding, some competitors have a 0% fee. When I’m trying to rebalance my portfolio, is it eating into my profits? I also wish I can sell stocks and ETFs based on value rather than amount.
- Security - Personally I’d like to see biometric authentication added to the platform. I already know that 2FA is not on your radar at the moment. [2FA Feature Request]
There are few other points, but they’re not coming to my mind as I’m typing this. I think I’ve written enough anyway.
I’d like to remind everyone that I’m not writing this to put Freetrade down. I want to stick with Freetrade for life and even get my family members on it. These are just my concerns and I really want Freetrade to do well. But at this very moment, I believe some Freetrade competitors are ahead. I understand some changes have been made to make money and that makes sense from a business perspective. I also understand that Freetrade competitors have different business strategies and had more time to grow their platforms. I just want Freetrade to add some important features (e.g. Fractional shares for all markets, DRIP, auto-invest…) and stay competitive.
So what’s next, Freetrade?