Our mission at Lightyear is to create successful investors. And that means making investing accessible to everyone, everywhere.
For too long, UK retail investors have got the short end of the stick. They’ve either been squeezed by legacy platforms charging sky-high fees for basic market access, or lured by neobrokers with promises of “free trading”, actually monetising through wide FX markups or pushing users towards complex and expensive products like CFDs.
With our price drop, today we challenge the cost Britons bear for investing.
Our new pricing is aligned across GIA and Stocks & Shares ISA:
- In GIA, we’re removing our trading fees, and lowering FX to 0.1%
- In Stocks & Shares ISA, our trading fees remain at zero, and FX will fall to 0.1%
This change is built on strong foundations
The team at Lightyear has been working hard on improving our underlying infrastructure. Bringing us closer to the core of investing means we can cut out expensive middlemen from processes, and fundamentally lower our cost to serve customers.
We’ve recently become a member of CREST, the UK’s central securities depository, which sets us up for a range of product improvements, instrument expansions and a fundamentally lower cost structure. And we want to pass those wins on to you.
We’re building Lightyear to be around forever. This new pricing allows us to charge as little as possible, while building a sustainable business.
As always, if you have any thoughts, feedback or questions, feel free to reach out to our team.
Disclaimer
Remember, when investing your capital is at risk.
Wander Rutgers is the UK CEO at Lightyear. He joined the company as an investor in the first round, advising Martin & Mihkel on compliance, operations and business development before joining the business full time as COO in May 2022. At Lightyear, Wander is focused on building out the brokerage, compliance and business functions to support growth and expansion.
Before Lightyear, Wander was President of Robinhood UK leading the business in its international expansion efforts. Before that, he was a Product Lead at Plum where he spearheaded the launch of its mutual fund investing product. Wander also held various roles at Wise (now TransferWise) across operations and product, including helping the company expand into dozens of new markets. He started his career as a strategy consultant at McKinsey in the Netherlands and earned his M.A. in Economics and Politics at the University of Edinburgh.