The Paypers

In a blog post, Matt Mair, business analyst at Monzo, wrote: “In a nutshell, the Freetrade app lets you invest in stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with no commission or hidden fees. Where they do charge, they do so in a transparent way.”

“Whether you’re an experienced investor or you’re a total beginner, they make it easy to manage your portfolio right there in the app.”

Monzo’s Plus and Premium customers will get three free shares—worth between GBP 3 and GBP 200 each—when they sign up to a new Freetrade account and deposit at least GBP 2.

The offer is slightly better than Freetrade’s standard referral programme, which only gives the user that refers a friend and the friend referred a free share each, not three free shares all for themselves.

But, Freetrade’s standard referral scheme requires the same minimum deposit (GBP2) and doesn’t have the added cost of Monzo’s subscriptions on top.

Monzo Plus is GBP 5 per month and allows users to connect their other bank accounts, while Monzo Premium, which boasts other features such as travel insurance, a metal card and higher interest rates costs a whopping GBP 15 per month.

Freetrade’s partnership with Monzo could be a new avenue for the digital bank to make money through commission fees, and hints at Monzo’s growing interest in the share trading space.

Without the costs of its US banking licence, Monzo will refocus its attention to investing more in its UK operations, with this partnership likely being the first of many new launches for its customers.

The trading and investment platform now counts 950,000 users on its platform.

Monzo partners with Freetrade to offer free shares for subscribers