"Lightyear" another zero fees investment apps cheaper than other platform for GIA (not better ?)

adindas

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/diyinvesting/article-9985949/Lightyear-app-Wise-backed-trading-app-battle-rivals.html

https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/lightyear-is-a-new-stock-trading-app-from-early-wise-employees/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAA-8dAPHWAQviTGntmCl9CdO-iZFY2p1K_UyLQmxrfYjq9CkUdcwVsRUXGTH66KZGerqCv1Y1HGAVEsGGWGwOQ-KyqXTwUoimFifeebwup8-z8DbPZdffqe86ezinq5Kia_bsO3mAbXtIpZnq7Kj-j-z77AzVnc4v0hKo0gPyofj

In term of fees, Slightly better than Trading 212 as there is no Forex Fees. T212 is charging 0.15% (?). For ETFs Invest Engine is probably still cheaper but is not a fair comparison if you trade stocks frequently.

Five stars review on TrustPilot

Limitation:

- No ISA, SIIP accounts

- You could only do market order. No limit order.

- Only do individual shares, no ETFs.

- Availability of Stocks to be traded not as many as T212

- Only on Mobile Device, not desktop app available at the moment

I have not tried it and have so can not comment on it. Please do your own DDs if you decide to use this app to invest. If you find any red flag please let other people know.

This guy has tested it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjFX4bM0Ww8&t=223s

DireEmblem

Competition is good.  The way I see it right now, however, is that it only has about 1000 US stocks.  Just wait until next year when AJB release their new slimmed down app as well.  All the better for us - hope they all last.

wmb194

The first thing I notice about this one is that it doesn't say that it has FSCS protection but it does state that it has SIPC coverage, the US' equivalent of the FSCS for investments. I guess it makes sense if it only(?) has US shares at the moment but I'm not sure. I really wouldn't want to have to deal with US bureaucracy if I could avoid it.

DireEmblem

As I understand it, the protection is much the same as with Chip when they first launched.  Its not that your assets are not protected, but in a different way.

In this case, I believe that goLightYear use Alpaca Securities LLC, which are covered by SIPC, and also use Risksave Technology I believe to act on their behalf to provide the trading services for customers.  I'm not aware of how SIPC works, but be careful watching YouTube videos as they can quite often misinterpret or misunderstand things and represent them as false truths to make their video's more interesting for their own financial gain.

Do your own homework as they say.

maxsteam

Avoid. There is no firm authorised by the FCA to trade under the trading name "Lightyear". They are allowed to act as an "Appointed Representative" using the name "Lightyear Financial Ltd" but that is not what they are doing.

If they can't follow basic FCA rules, you should not trust them with money imho.

Maybe they will get their FCA authorisation in line with their activities at some point but they've not done it yet.


The FCA decided, in relation to the PremierFX scandal, that the FSCS and other protections do not apply if a firm is trading in a way that it is not authorised to trade. In the case of PremierFX the firm was allowed to hold clients' funds for up to 3 days. The firm activity sought longer term deposits and told clients that the funds were FSCS protected. The FCA decided otherwise and customers lost everything.