flatex vs Trading 212 — which broker is better?

Pros

• EUR 5.90 flat commission on German, US, Canadian and other foreign orders with no percentage component up to EUR 40,000 — a EUR 10,000 trade costs the same as a EUR 1,000 trade
• All ETF and fund savings plans execute at EUR 0.00 commission with over 5,000 plans available and no cap on the savings rate
• No custody fee, no account fee, no inactivity fee, and free incoming and outgoing depot transfers
• Genuine spot crypto in around 25 coins at 0.6%–0.7% all-in, held inside the regulated German bank rather than as an ETN wrapper
• Full German banking licence under BaFin and Bundesbank supervision, with an MDAX-listed parent (flatexDEGIRO SE, ticker FTK) publishing audited accounts and over EUR 100 billion in customer securities under custody
• Tax-simple in both markets it serves: automatic German Abgeltungsteuer withholding and automatic Austrian KESt settlement at 27.5% on flatex.at
• Free foreign-currency sub-accounts, so USD or CHF proceeds can be held rather than converted back at a spread every time
• Fast onboarding — flatex advertises a five-minute fully digital account opening, and no minimum deposit applies

Cons

• 0.00% p.a. credit interest on cash balances. Competitors pay 1%–1.75% on the settlement or call account, so an investor holding EUR 20,000 in cash gives up EUR 200–350 a year that never shows up in any fee table
• Currency conversion costs an absolute margin of USD 0.0040 per euro — roughly 0.35% — which is worse than Consorsbank's published USD 0.0030 and far worse than a multi-currency specialist
• No Eurex or US options and futures trading at all. Certificates, knock-outs and Société Générale CFDs are the only leveraged instruments on offer
• Real-time quotes are metered: 25 free per month plus 10 per executed order, then EUR 0.01 per query, and the professional flatex trader 2.0 platform costs EUR 15–39 a month on top
• The EUR 5.90 floor makes flatex expensive for small orders — a EUR 300 purchase pays about 2% in commission before venue costs, where a EUR 1 neobroker charges 0.3%
• Direct foreign market access is narrow: US, Canada, Euronext, Vienna, Zurich and Milan (sell only). There is no direct London, Tokyo, Hong Kong or Nordic access, and stock savings plans cost 1.00% of the rate

Pros

• The lowest all-in cost of any mainstream European broker for buy-and-hold investors: no commission, no custody fee, no inactivity fee, free withdrawals with no minimum, and a 0.15% FX conversion fee.
• Over 13,000 global stocks and ETFs across LSE, Xetra, Gettex, NYSE, Nasdaq and Euronext Amsterdam, all available fractionally from as little as EUR 1.
• Pies and AutoInvest let you define a target portfolio with weights and drip contributions into it automatically - proper portfolio automation rather than a recurring single-stock order.
• A true multi-currency account across twelve-plus currencies including GBP, EUR, USD, CHF, PLN, SEK, NOK, DKK, CZK, HUF, CAD and AUD, so you can hold the currency you trade in and avoid conversion entirely.
• Bank transfers and all withdrawals are free with no limits; card and e-wallet deposits are free up to a cumulative GBP/EUR 2,000 before a 0.7% charge applies.
• EEA clients of Trading 212 Markets Ltd. get EUR 20,000 ICF cover plus, per Trading 212's own disclosure, additional insurance up to EUR 1m through Lloyd's of London.
• Regulated across five jurisdictions - FCA 609146, CySEC 398/21, BaFin 10109603, ASIC 541122 and Bulgaria's FSC - which is unusually broad for a private app broker.
• The mobile app is genuinely excellent: full account functionality, fast, and consistently among the highest-rated broker apps in the UK.

Cons

• Research is the weakest of any broker at this size. There is no meaningful screener, no analyst consensus, no fundamental data worth the name and no export tooling - you will make every decision using data from somewhere else.
• No options, no futures, no individual bonds and no mutual funds. The entire proposition is stocks, ETFs, CFDs and spot crypto; anything more structured has to live at another broker.
• Support is chat and email only, with no retail phone line. For a platform holding a pension and an ISA, the absence of a voice channel is a real gap when something is time-critical.
• Privately held, so there is no quarterly reporting or public market scrutiny of the kind eToro and XTB are subject to as listed companies.
• Governance record has two visible blemishes: blocking retail GameStop purchases in January 2021, which drew UK Financial Ombudsman complaints, and being reported in 2026 to have let UK retail clients buy crypto ETNs between October 2025 and January 2026 before holding the FCA permission.
• CFD costs are much less attractive than the investing side - the FX fee is around 0.5% rather than 0.15%, and overnight interest accrues daily on every leveraged position and compounds over time.