DEGIRO Review UK

DEGIRO launched its new trading platform in 2019 and has since gone on to win numerous awards. Its trading platform is known as WebTrader. 

The company has amassed over two million customers during this short time. It’s a legitimate European company that’s properly regulated by the FCA. 

There’s an incredible amount of talk surrounding the company and I wanted to find out why. So, I delved deep into DEGIRO and discovered that it’s a remarkably cost-effect trading platform.

If you’re considering using the platform, you may want to check out my DEGIRO review first.

By the end, you’ll have a better sense of whether this is the right trading platform for you. 

Introduction to DEGIRO 

DEGIRO was initially founded as an online stock broker in 2008.

The company’s main goal at this time was to help experienced investors.

However, they later serviced retail investors before making the move to make the platform accessible to more people throughout the UK and Europe. 

It is now a German-owned company, despite first being established as a Dutch company. Flatex AG acquired DEGIRO in full in 2020. This acquisition move is what made DEGIRO among the most notable stockbrokers in Europe. 

When Flatex AG acquired DEGIRO, there were around 450,000 users. Two years later, the company gained more than two million users. 

What Products Are Available?

Whilst browsing through DEGIRO’s products, I was impressed to find that they offer an incredible range. This includes futures trading, warrants, options, shares, EFTs, investment funds, bonds, and leveraged products. 

If you’re a forex trader, you’ll be disappointed as that’s one of the only unavailable products. Other than that, the variety of investment opportunities is vast. 

One element that makes DEGIRO stand out is the fact that it provides many stock exchange opportunities. To be specific, there are 22 stock exchanges available in Europe, as well as four in Asia and four in North America. 

The bond investments can be exchanged on the stock in just six exchanges. However, these are among the most notable exchanges. 

When it comes to EFTs, you have access to 19 exchanges. The EFTs can be exchanged in Oceania and Asian exchanges. I also liked how there are 14 exchanges available for future trading. 

As far as leveraged products go, you can choose from European exchanges. These include Borse Frankfurt, Euronext Access Paris, and Xetra.

Whilst there aren’t many options, they’re still worth considering if you’re interested in using leveraged products. This gives you access to low-interest rates whilst purchasing on margins to gain leverage. 

There’s no SIPP (self-invested personal pension) product available, which may be disappointing for some users.

Additionally, there are no price notification features. This is something that many trading platforms now offer.

This feature gives you automatic notifications once an asset reaches a certain price that you’ve set. As a result, you can stay up to date with the market and place trades fast. The fact that this isn’t available with DEGIRO is a downside to consider. 

Who Is DEGIRO Best For? 

After signing up, I found that I had access to WebTrader on my laptop and my mobile phone.

This made it super easy for me to keep track of my portfolio wherever I was. The app was easy to use whilst on the go. 

Unfortunately, DEGIRO has currently prevented new UK customers from signing up for its service. This is temporary but it’s unclear when they’ll start allowing new clients to join the UK platform again. 

Luckily for me, I’m also a Portuguese resident so managed to circumvent this.

I appreciate the ‘QuickOrder’ function available on the app. This gave me remarkably quick access to important information about the financial markets, quotes, and my orders. 

I also liked being able to include specific products to a list of ‘Favourites’. This ended up saving me some time when it came to buying and selling products that I was more familiar with. 

These features enable advanced traders to keep up with their portfolios in real-time. How does the platform fare for beginners?

I was pleased to find that DEGIRO has an Investor’s Academy. This is an educational resource that beginner traders can use to learn about the basics of trading.

This gives you the rundown on how to trade if you’ve never done it before.

The topics in the course educate users about what a broker is, the different types of investors, the available products, how to choose stock, types of orders, and more. 

The course even goes as far as to include strategies and thinking exercises that help users think ahead and understand the risk. 

For visual learners, the course is available in videos. You can also choose to read through the course via text.

So, if you’ve never traded before, I’d recommend that you start by going through the Investors Academy.

They start with the fundamentals of trading which is great. However, intermediate traders may not gain as much value from the course as they may already know most of the information.

The predictions and charting elements available are basic. These are better utilised by beginners rather than experts. 

So, experts may not benefit from DEGIRO as much as beginners. However, experienced traders may be willing to use the more basic features due to how the price is so low.

DEGIRO Fees 

DEGIRO’s fees are notoriously low for an online trading platform. You can be charged up to £5 for each trade. Typically, trades in the UK cost 0.014% plus £1.75. These fees remain the same regardless of how often and how much you trade. 

When it comes to trading in the Canadian and US stock exchanges, you’ll be charged a fee of €1. There are no commission charges here which many users are surprised to see. 

There are varying fees depending on the stock exchange that you’re trading with. Here’s a rundown of the fees involved. 

• Australia, Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong charge €10 plus 0.06%
• Poland charges €5 plus 0.16%
• Germany Frankfurt Stocks charge €7.50 plus 0.09%
• Germany XETRA charges €4 plus 0.05%
• Germany Zertifikate-Borse Frankfurt Charges €2 plus 0.11%
• Canada charges €2 plus 0.01 Canadian dollars per share
• Czech Republic, Turkey, Greece, and Hungary charge €10 plus 0.16% 
• Switzerland, Norway, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal, Finland, Denmark, Ireland, and Italy charge €4 plus 0.05%

The fees vary according to the type of exchange used and if you’re using your local currency. This is one of the areas where DEGIRO falls short.

I would have preferred more information about the transaction fees involved when trading in different exchanges and using other currencies. 

You’re also charged a connectivity fee of €2.50 annually. This fee is for all trades that are made outside of the London Stock Exchange.

I inquired about trading via the phone and quickly realised that the fees would be pretty high. But this is standard with more stockbrokers. 

When it comes to using a Custody Account with DEGIRO, you’ll be charged €1 plus 3% of the dividend. The dividend max is 10%. 

DEGIRO Accounts

When signing up for DEGIRO, I liked how they offered five accounts. These include Basic, Active, Trader, Day Trader, and Custody. This gives users plenty of options to choose the account that suits their needs best. 

Whilst they offer a good range of account options, I was disappointed with the lack of a demo account. Many online trading platforms offer a free demo account.

This is particularly useful for beginner traders or people who are interested in using the platform. These demo accounts allow you to trial the platform before committing to one of the accounts.

This is a major downside for beginner investors or people who are unsure about using DEGIRO. There’s no opportunity to test out any of the trading features without investing money. 

Another downside to the account set-up process is that once you’ve picked an account, you can’t switch it. The only way to use a different type of account is to make an entirely new one. 

This could be off-putting for beginner investors who aren’t completely sure about which account is right for them. For experienced traders, this may not be as big of an issue as they will have a better idea of the account they want to use. 

The Basic DEGIRO account provides you with plenty of features, aside from leveraged products.

However, I also found that this saved me some additional charges. You must use the Day Trader, Trade, or Active account if you want access to leveraged products. 

The Custody account is the only one where DEGIRO doesn’t communicate your share positions elsewhere. With all other accounts, your sharing positions will be shared with other companies.

This is done so that DEGIRO can continue providing its services with very low fees. However, it can also be risky. 

This is because if DEGIRO and the company it shares the positions with shut down, you could lose your investments. 

I was disappointed with this because there’s no opt-in feature here. When you make an account (excluding the Custody account), your share positions are given to other companies. 

To make things riskier, your investments are only protected up to €20,000. This is significantly lower than the amount of protection available from FSCS.

This is a factor you should consider carefully, especially if you’re looking to invest lots of money in one trading platform. 

Is It Easy to Open a DEGIRO Account?

I was able to open my account within just 10 minutes. Having said that, I had to wait an additional two working days to have complete access to the platform. Others have had to wait up to three days before being able to use their DEGIRO accounts. 

You can open an account if you’re a resident of Switzerland, Norway, the UK, and the EU. This includes a total of 18 countries. If you don’t live in any of these areas, you won’t be able to open a DEGIRO account. 

When it comes to opening an account in the UK, you must link a bank account that’s in the UK or Northern Ireland.

The platform doesn’t allow transfers from bank accounts that are outside of the UK or Northern Ireland. This also means you can’t send transfers from Gibraltar, Jersey, Isle of Man, or Guernsey. 

There’s a minimum deposit of £0.01. Once you open an account, you must deposit money into it. This is done so that DEGIRO can verify you. This is the process that can take 2-3 working days to complete. 

Once that’s done, you can start trading. I made use of the Instant Deposit feature which allowed me to deposit funds into my DEGIRO account with no fees. However, fees for this feature are charged once you begin trading. 

You can’t fund or withdraw funds with your DEGIRO account using a debit/credit card. Instead, you can only fund your DEGIRO account with a bank transfer. All transfers must be done manually. 

Similarly to many online brokers, you’re not able to transfer investments to your DEGIRO account. Instead, you’d have to sell any assets and invest the funds from your bank account to your DEGIRO account. 

If you decide to close your DEGIRO account, you’ll need to email the customer support team. They’ll respond and close your account within 2-3 working days. Any deposits in your DEGIRO account will be automatically sent to your bank account. 

Is It Easy to Withdraw Money With DEGIRO?

I found that the depositing method with DEGIRO was easy. So, I was pleased to find that withdrawing funds was just as easy.

However, you can only withdraw funds to a bank account. Those wanting to withdraw funds to a credit/debit card will be disappointed. 

To withdraw funds, simply log in and go to the ‘Deposit/Withdraw/ section. You can then choose the amount of funds to transfer and select your bank account. There are no withdrawal fees when using DEGIRO. 

Is DEGIRO Tax Efficient?

Unfortunately, DEGIRO isn’t a great option if you were looking for a tax-efficient trading platform. 

There are no accounts that offer tax benefits. Furthermore, there are no features that make DEGIRO an option to consider for tax efficiency. If you were looking for a hassle-free way to be tax-efficient whilst trading, I can’t recommend DEGIRO.

However, if you have an accountant, they may be able to get into the nitty-gritty details and figure out ways to keep you tax efficient. This may be worth considering if you find that you’re saving considerable amounts of money with the low DEGIRO fees. 

For most people, DEGIRO isn’t a great option for keeping your taxes low. 

Customer Support 

Before signing up for DEGIRO, I was researching the platform and found that they’ve gained mixed customer support reviews.

Some users mentioned that the customer support was unhelpful, whereas others said that the service was great. 

My experience with DEGIRO’s customer support was somewhere in between the two. This is because the process of getting in contact with someone was somewhat lengthy.

When phoning the customer service number, I had to wait for a while before getting through to someone. However, once I was through, the support member was helpful. The phone lines are open five days a week from 7 AM to 9 PM. 

The only other option to contact DEGIRO customer support is via email. Unfortunately, there’s no live chat feature available.

I usually find the live chat features available with many online trading platforms to be the quickest and most effective way to receive help.

DEGIRO Alternatives

• Trading212: Offers zero commissions on the stock trade. Beginner investors also benefit from how easy the platform is to use. 
• Plus500: If you’re interested in CFD trading, Plus500 is an excellent option. There are no commissions when you trade with CFDs, commodities, crypto, EFTs, forex, options, and stocks. 
• eToro: Another great option that offers zero-commission stock trading. The social element of eToro also enables investors to learn from each other. 
• Interactive Brokers: There are over 150 global markets available when trading with Interactive Brokers. You also have plenty of products to choose from. These include bonds, stocks, mutual funds, EFTs, futures, and options. 

DEGIRO Pros & Cons

Pros

• Low fees
• Intuitive platform
• Regulated by authoritative companies

Cons

• Some are disappointed with the lack of research tools
• No forex trading is available
• Can’t deposit funds using debit or credit cards

DEGIRO Review UK – Final Thoughts

DEGIRO is an ideal trading platform for those interested in investing with low fees.

There are several significant downsides, including the lack of tax-efficient options. There’s no demo account which isn’t ideal for beginner traders or people who are just interested in trying the platform before investing money. The customer support team is also a little hit or miss.

I can recommend DEGIRO for its variety of Europen trading options and its low fee structure. The Investors Academy is also great for beginner traders who are starting from the very bottom. Investors looking for a cheap trading platform that offers plenty of investment options could benefit from DEGIRO the most. 

So, that wraps it up. My experience using DEGIRO was positive. However, there were some major downsides that I found along the way that soured the taste a little. 

Hopefully, you’re feeling more assured about whether DEGIRO is the right online trading platform for you. 

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