All comparisons

LHV vs Lightyear

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When you invest, your capital is at risk.

Key takeaways

Lightyear offers a cost-effective alternative to LHV's Kasvukonto. Transaction fees on stocks are fixed at 1€ / 1£ / 1$, compared to a 5€ minimum on LHV. Lightyear’s currency conversion fee is also much lower (0.35% vs ~1%), and there are no account holding fees, no matter your portfolio size. Lightyear also features modern, easy-to-use mobile and web applications.
LHV
Currency conversion (FX)
0.35%
~1%
Monthly fee
Free
0.01% per month
plus VAT
ETFs
- per order
Free
0.5% on buys
0.14% on sells (€5 min)
US stocks
- per order
$1 max
0.5% on buys
0.14% on sells (€5 min)
EU stocks
- per order
1€
0.5% on buys
0.14% on sells (€5 min)
UK stocks
- per order
£1
0.5% on buys
0.14% on sells (€5 min)

Pricing information displayed refers to the Kasvukonto product. Data sourced from lhv.ee, and correct as of 1st of June 2026. For the most up to date information, please visit their website.

An additional fee of €25 applies when transactions are made offline via LHV client service. The monthly account fee does not apply to customers under 26 years old. LHV funds can be purchased without execution fees.

Kasvukonto price comparison
Those account fees and trading fees can add up quickly.
Starting value€5,000
Annual growth rate4.00%
Monthly contributions€200
Years5

This projection assumes ETF investing in home currency only (i.e. no single stock investments). LHV's own proprietary funds (which are free of charge and only available to LHV customers) are excluded. We've also assumed that the Kasvukonto account is 1+ year old and that you are over 26 years old, meaning you pay the management fee (which is discounted for the first 12 months).

Trading fee: Fund purchases in the Kasvukonto are charged at 0.5% for a purchase transaction. Account fee: An ongoing management fee of 0.01% per month (plus VAT) is charged on the total portfolio value. See LHV's full terms and conditions.

Exit fees
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Work out how long it'll take you to recoup your sell costs.
Number of funds5
Exit fees for LHV Kasvukonto

€25.00

2 months to recoup

This projection assumes ETF investing in home currency only (i.e. no single stock investments). Sells are charged at 0.14% of trade value, with a minimum charge of 5€ per fund. Note that LHV's own funds can be sold free of charge.
Frequently asked
LHV vs Lightyear: FAQs

For investment services, Lightyear and Estonian banks are regulated identically — with investments covered up to the same amount in both.

Lightyear is a regulated investment firm, (under EFSA) and is strictly regulated in how we handle and protect your assets. Customers’ cash and investments always sit separately to our own and are held by authorised custodians. There’s no way for creditors - in the unlikely event of anything happening to Lightyear - to get hold of the investments or cash that you hold with us.

Lightyear’s customers’ assets are held with our global partners — mainly in the Netherlands, Ireland and US.

Compared to LHV, Lightyear offers global investing at significantly lower transaction fees, plus a ~3x smaller currency conversion fee. On top of that, we don't charge a monthly account fee.

If you buy two ETFs every month, at a total of 200€ invested per month, LHV's fees would end up costing you at least 116€ over 5 years. On Lightyear, the same strategy would cost you nothing — ETFs have zero execution fees and we don't charge an account fee.

Good question. LHV doesn’t show its currency conversion fee anywhere in the process. What they do is that they mark up the live exchange rate, giving you a worse rate, so they could make profit on it without you realising.

The ~1% we calculated from our own investments with LHV.

Investing doesn’t need to be expensive. Local banks continue to charge high fees simply because they’ve not yet been forced to lower them. Our mission is to bring the best quality investing to every European at a fraction of the cost.

We can do this by building technology that scales. We’re building for 500 million people across Europe, whilst Estonian banks build for a million. The technology we’re building allows us to cut middle-men, bringing extra costs to customers, from processes. The stronger our tech and infrastructure, the more we can pass on cheaper pricing it brings us, to our users.