Why I didn’t go back to T212 for investing

When I joined t212 in august last year, I then removed all my funds in December to help buy a car. But over the last few months when you look at it as a whole it is quite worrying.

They first released a share dealing service, I didn’t thing much about this.
They then added a charge to use your card at 0.7% which felt expensive to me but atleast you could use the instant bank transfer to deposit for free.

Also they have suspended new customers for over a month now, they have now added a fx fee 0.15%.

The minimum amount for pending orders to 100 units of the currency, which when I start working in the office again I would probably want to use but 100 is a bit much as I would normally buy 1 share of something like vusa for example. Also before this was announced it happened to users as someone asked in the forum why this happened to them and t212 said it shouldn’t happen and a day or two later they released the announcement. So basically lied to the customer.

They have apparently removed the free shares for referrals for new customers, not checked if this is true.

Also seen that a YouTuber has been suspended due to the free share referrals as from what he said it looks like his viewers were getting the free share then just selling it and then just withdrawing the funds. Which was allowed by the terms and conditions back then. Apparently these have now changed. Don’t know how true this is.

They still advertise on the homepage that they don’t charge fees. They seem to keep the announcements low key. Just feels this was the business plan from the beginning attract over a million customers and customer assets in the billions and then start charging fees. Doing it this way when customers have Thousands of pounds invested they would be less likely to want the hassle selling them all and moving platforms.

Just leaves me feel what next, and uncertainty. Personally I think they are going to wait for all the isa to be opened after April and then either add a account fee or isa fee.

To me you need to be able to trust the company you are with especially when it comes to money.

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You should post this on their forum really.

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That’s why I posted it in the other fintech section and not freetrade chat. Also this is why I went with freetrade and not t212 as freetrade is more transparent with fees.

Also Someone put something similar on t212 forum called it honest review.

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maybe change the title to why FT is Better than 212 so people know what you mean. @Terry20

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Well, what I’m about to say is quite an unpopular opinion, and I’m probably going to get roasted for it. It’s my pure opinion that I don’t mind paying fees. There, I said it. I don’t know who on earth came up with the idea of “zero fees” in the brokerage industry. Brokers taking commission or fees is as old as the stock market itself; technically, it’s how the whole industry used to make a profit itself. It’s how it’s supposed to work. I’m glad T212 is taking this step, because it’s a sign they’re taking their service to the next level.

Over the past couple years, investing/trading has largely seen the gamification of itself by the brokerage industry, especially with zero fees. For that reason, it’s lured way too many individuals into the investing space, only to “gamble” away their life savings because they think the stock market is a casino. It is not. This sort of mentality is hurting the companies willing to raise capital, the large institutional investors and also, yes, even the little guy. It’s causing a trading frenzy that has practically ruined the functionality of the US stock market; the volatility just isn’t going away ever since the 2020 crash. And it is clear what the impact of the GameStop squeeze has had on other parts of the market. Sure, the HFs got burned - but so did the little guy also holding puts. But the biggest victims are the small individuals (with no prior trading experience) who bought GameStop at $450 with all their life savings. I remember seeing posts all over the internet, people asking “what is the stock market?” or “how do I buy GameStop”. Melvin Capital still exists and it’s business as usual, but that’s not quite the same for the bagholders. This is what happens when you gamify investing. And fees will deter such individuals.

So I guess this recent increase in trading frenzy is what is prompting these recent moves by brokerages to introduce fees. I’m not surprised at all at such a move by T212. I’ll say it again, it’s not a game. So I’ll gladly keep using T212.

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I didn’t say I was against fees but the way T212 are going about it as a whole with the other issues.
If I was against the fx fee I wouldn’t have gone with FT since it even higher.
After all they are a business and need to make profit to survive and add features etc.

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If you don’t mind paying fees that why on earth would you use T212?! You have a multitude of other UK based brokers that are reputable and don’t do things like suspend new user accounts or change their strategy every 5 minutes.

As Terry states it’s about trust. I’d never hold money in the account of a company based in Bulgaria that according to the Times is very hard to get hold of / doesn’t respond to multiple requests for information.

Article that references that is here; https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/can-you-really-become-a-share-trader-for-free-9980jcc0h

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@michaeldobfx

One of my friends had funds missing for 4 weeks when he complained to the Financial Ombudsman the funds where back with him but T212 closed his account and refused to do business with him as per their t and c

Hence after this story there is no way I am going to them

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That story about your friend, kinda deepens my distrust in them.
Sorry to hear they had these problems with T212.

Ps I think I will leave the title as it is, I did miss out the word “to” accidentally though

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Pretty much why I just moved everything over to FT.

0.45 FX is a bit steep for frequent traders but there’s lots of discussion on this and there is plan is to bring this down from what I have read at some point in the distant or not so distant future so all good.

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Welcome to the FT community @Jack_trip

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They’re still cheaper than Freetrade though it sounds like.

Like I have said before, it is not about the fee.

No one is disputing the fact trading 212 fx fee is cheaper.

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Obviously everyone has different views and experiences but on balance there are aspects of both FT and T212 that I have been happy and unhappy with (and I use both).

I think one look at the Help section of this forum will demonstrate that missing customer deposits are not unique to either provider.

I’ve been critical in the past of some of the decisions that FT have made particularly around paywalling previously freely available stocks and etfs (which I still think was a bad move) but there is no doubt that t212 have got it spectacularly wrong recently with card fees (with no free alternatives for some non-UK users), announcing that the invest/isa services were self sustaining (profitable) and then introducing fx fees.

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  • 0.7% card fee is disappointing, I still have part of the free 2k left, will then use free instant bank transfer
  • queuing customers during periods of exceptional popularity of standard practice, FT have used it for various products
  • use of pending orders is typically not advised (at least without stop loss limits)
  • free shares are not necessary while onboarding is already queued
  • I hate free share spammers and have tagged FT several times in their Twitter, glad to see this practise being closed down
  • stealthily waiting to introduce Isa/account Fee is purely negative speculation.

I’ve always had prompt service and appreciate the more developed suite of functions, particularly being able to fully reconcile (dividends, backing, un/realised gains, bonuses).

They have been profitable from inception from their cfd product and provide 85k fcscs protection from their U.K. fca registration.

I like the ethos of FT and have a free GIA account. I typically buy U.K./EU etfs but have recently stumped up the fx Fee for some US reopening stocks.

FT Service has also been good with the caveat of similar spike in recent demand and I recognise I have been de-prioritised for running the free account.

FT has never made a profit and so far cash burn has made me reluctant to add my SIPP (queued due to capacity/demand restraints as seen on other platforms).

However, if they can establish themselves as a consistently profitable company with their Fee structures then I’d consider moving my SIPP from Vanguard.

FT SIPP is hyper-competitive although I would be over the FSCS coverage so I’m sticking with the nuclear attack safety of Vanguard for now.

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Your shares will be held in a nominee account in your name so it would be safe, and doesn’t this mean the fscs coverage will be for money held in account.
FT won’t be profitable anytime soon because they will be reinvesting the money into new products and expanding.

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I’m sorry, but where did I say I don’t like zero-fee brokers? I only said I don’t mind paying fees, that doesn’t mean I won’t I’ll happily use a commission-free broker if given the chance. The original point is, the fees part doesn’t concern me as much. Sure, sometimes it’s handy to have zero or really low commission, if I expect to make more trades on a weekly or monthly based. I use both HL and T212 - and HL is only for the shares I keep for months or even years, but since HL is really expensive, I don’t mind using T212 if it means trading costs are lesser.

Unfortunately, I’ve never personally heard about anyone experiencing troubles with T212. All I know is that a lot of people experience certain issues when trading CFD brokerage accounts, with different providers such as Plus500. That might also be the case with T212. But I’ve never fallen into issues considering how many times I’ve withdrawn. Anyhow, Trading 212 is based in Bulgaria, but their U.K. subsidiary (Trading 212 UK) is based in London and regulated by the FCA, so I doubt that the Bulgarian division plays a large part in transactions, if any at all.

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and you have an account with FT ?

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