Hungarians have for too long been underserved, without a good way to grow their wealth through investing. We’re so excited to launch in Hungary, because it’s you - local investors - that asked us to come, by reaching out and joining our waitlist.
We’re launching a localised product, with HUF included in our multi-currency account. This means you can deposit money in HUF and convert it to USD, EUR or GBP to easily invest in the world’s markets, in their local currency. On every currency balance, you can also earn interest on your uninvested money — 7% for HUF, 4.5% for USD and GBP and 3.25% for EUR, as of Dec 22.
With Lightyear, you can access over 3,000 stocks and ETFs from markets like the US, UK and Germany, among others. Investing on Lightyear is low-cost and our pricing structure is clear. ETFs are completely free of Lightyear’s execution fees, and won't be subject to any conversion fees either if you hold money in USD, GBP or EUR. We charge a small, flat 0.35% fee on currency conversion. See our full pricing here.
My co-founder Mihkel and I have first hand experience with how difficult and broken investing in Europe is. You have the big banks and professional platforms, but they come with high fees and confusing UX. Information about stock market movements is scattered, and difficult to understand. And if you’re in a country with a different local currency than the world’s biggest stock markets — things get especially tricky.
We’re fixing three huge problems Europeans face when investing in international markets:
Expensive and opaque fee structures
Limited access to markets
Limited information and education
By eliminating these problems, we’re working to build a platform that enables you to take your investing to the next level.
And we’re so excited to have you along for the ride!
Disclaimer
Disclaimer: Remember, with investing your capital is at risk. Interest shown as of 07/11/2023
By Martin Sokk
Martin is a lifelong product builder in the finance world having joined Wise as the first product person. Martin began working with Mihkel on the idea for Lightyear in the summer of 2020. After meeting for a coffee to catch up, they both quickly realised that they shared a strong opinion: investing in Europe is still broken.
