The LSE Directory / CFD and forex brokers
Trade Republic is a Berlin-based online brokerage and fully licensed bank, operating as Trade Republic Bank GmbH, that lets retail customers invest, save and spend through a single mobile app. Customers can trade individual stocks, ETFs, bonds and exchange-traded derivatives such as warrants, knock-outs and factor certificates, buy cryptocurrencies directly, set up automated savings plans, and hold an interest-bearing cash account with an IBAN and a debit card, all under one login. Pricing is a flat per-order fee rather than a percentage commission, a structure historically subsidised in part by payment-for-order-flow (PFOF) arrangements with market makers. The company targets first-time and cost-conscious retail investors rather than active or leveraged traders, and it differentiates from many neobroker peers by holding its own full banking license from the European Central Bank, granted in December 2023, rather than routing client cash and securities through a partner bank. In January 2026 a Trade Republic subsidiary obtained a BaFin license to operate its own multilateral trading facility, letting it internalise equity order execution as the EU's PFOF ban took effect on 30 June 2026, a structural step most European neobroker rivals had not taken by that date. Trade Republic traces to 2015, when Christian Hecker, Thomas Pischke and Marco Cancellieri built the product as "Neon Trading" inside Comdirect Bank's startup incubator in Munich before relaunching under the Trade Republic name; Hecker remains chief executive. Dusseldorf's Sino AG took a majority stake in 2017, and venture investors including Creandum, Project A Ventures, Accel Partners and Founders Fund put in more than 60 million euro in 2019 and 2020. The company raised 900 million dollar at a 5 billion dollar valuation in May 2021, then a further 250 million euro extension led by Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board in June 2022. It reported its first annual profit in the 2023/24 financial year, 34.8 million euro on 340 million euro revenue, and by September 2025 said it served more than 10 million customers across 18 European countries with over 150 billion euro in client assets and cash. In December 2025 a 1.2 billion euro secondary share sale, with existing investors Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital, Accel, TCV and Thrive Capital participating and Fidelity, Wellington and GIC joining as new investors, valued the company at approximately 12.5 billion euro. In September 2025 Trade Republic moved beyond brokerage into wealth management, partnering with private equity firms Apollo and EQT to let customers invest in private-markets funds from as little as 1 euro with monthly liquidity, compared with the funds' standard 10,000 euro minimum and quarterly redemption terms; it described the move as the first of several planned new asset classes.
