FreeTrade – Commission Free Investment Broker

FreeTrade is an award-winning commission free investment broker. They are fully regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and are members of the London Stock Exchange. FreeTrade accounts are also covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

Commision Free Investment Broker

At the time of writing this post, FreeTrade has four investment accounts available:

GENERAL INVESTMENT ACCOUNT (GIA):

This default investment account has no monthly fees, and your trades are commission free. You can invest in most available assets; however, some stocks are not available with the GIA account. In addition, the GIA account only allows instant trades at market prices – you cannot set limit orders (execute if the price reaches a certain level). Finally, the GIA account enables you to buy fraction shares, which means you can buy the more expensive stocks without purchasing a whole share.

STOCKS & SHARES ISA:

A Stocks & Shares ISA allows you to invest tax-free, so you do not have to pay capital gains tax or income tax on dividends. The usually annual limits apply for how much cash you can add to your ISA account – currently, £20,000. Unlike the GIA account, you can buy all the available assets. Some shares you can not hold in any ISA due to HMRC rules. The Stocks & Shares ISA is commission-free, although there is a monthly fee of £3.

FREETRADE PLUS ACCOUNT:

The FreeTrade Plus account is the premium account. There is a monthly fee of £9.99, and this fee includes the Stocks & Shares ISA. You also earn 3% interest on any cash in your account up to £4,000, paid monthly. The significant advantage of the Plus account is the full range of stocks and ETFs but, more importantly, the limit orders and stop-loss options. These options allow you to set price limits so that your order only executes if the price reaches a specific level.

FREETRADE SIPP:

A SIPP is a self-invested personal pension. This account is a tax-efficient pension saving account that allows you to invest and manage your own pension. You receive tax relief on contributions up to £40,000 per tax year and can contribute up to 100% of your salary. You can also consolidate other pensions into this one account. FreeTrade will claim the 25% tax relief from HMRC for you and deposit it straight into your SIPP account.

This account currently costs £9.99, or £7.99 if you already own a plus account. As with all the other accounts, the trades are commission-free. The SIPP provides access to the entire catalogue of stocks and ETFs. Fractional shares are also available to buy as part of your SIPP account. The critical thing to remember with the SIPP account is you can not access it until you reach 55.

Warning: You must understand that stocks and shares can go up as well as down. Therefore, SIPP accounts could be a dangerous way of building a pension fund if you have little investing experience. You could lose all your money. Seek professional advice from a financial advisor if you are not sure.

FreeTrade Community

Freetrade has developed a fun community spirit among its employees and their customers. You can communicate with customer service directly via the app using their messaging functionality. In addition, the staff are always helpful and friendly.

You can subscribe to FreeTrades blog and newsletters that are informative and fun. The newsletter is called Honey and gives you the option to pick what information you want to receive, from daily market news to weekly deep-dive information.

You can also find educational resources and an active community chat forum with multiple discussion boards. The discussion boards cover topics from stock-specific chats to requests for new functionality. This forum also has links to other helpful information, such as the IPO calendar. Remember, many people in the community are amateur investors, so do not invest based on comments or recommendations from chat forums.

Summary

Freetrade is an order execution platform and does not offer research, analysis or charting software. This is how they can continue to develop commission-free trading. The FreeTrade platform and services make it easy and affordable for anyone to invest in their future. Freetrade is an excellent option for new investors with smaller accounts due to the commission free investing.

If you need charting software or more research and fundamental data, consider looking at SharePad, Finbox and TradingView.