Palo Alto-based start-up Robinhood says it is in discussions with regulators to bring its no-fee share trading app to Australia later this year, after receiving a flood of inquiries from local consumers.
“The demand was one of the reasons we chose Australia” as the first country for international expansion, Robinhood’s Jack Randall said in an interview with Business Spectator.
Robinhood’s product is a smartphone app that enables share trading with no fees per transaction, no minimum trade and no minimum account balance. It cross-subsidises the broking by keeping interest on uninvested cash balances, and will soon start to charge fees on margin lending. READ MORE: A new world of free share trading
In May, Robinhood announced a second funding round of $50 million which will enable the international expansion. Its investors include Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures.
The firm’s high-tech, low-cost business model is typical of small disruptors such as peer-to-peer lenders that are targeting fat margins on personal and business loans.
