Revolut, Upvest enable ETF and stock trading in Europe

The collaboration enables the global financial super app to provide its users with an extensive range of investment choices through Upvest’s modular, accessible, and compliant Investment API that aims to make investing as simple as spending money.

Launch context and what it entails for Revolut

Following the March 2023 launch of US-listed stocks, the company was looking to expand its wealth and trading offering with ETFs, followed by EEA-listed stocks. The announcement details that Revolut saw fractional shares as being especially important for such an offering, as they enable retail investors to participate in capital markets even with a decreased budget.

Consisting of a white-label investment platform that includes brokerage, settlement, and custody for fractional investments, Upvest’s end-to-end solution is fully customisable to Revolut’s brand. The latter is set to provide its users with access to an extensive array of ETFs and European stocks while maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements across the EU.

Revolut is set to operate in Upvest’s Bring-Your-Own-Licence (BYOL) Omnibus setup, which enables it to leverage its proprietary investment firm licences while relying on the fintech’s brokerage, settlement, and custody functionality.

In relation to the advantages of collaborating with Upvest, the announcement highlights that Revolut will be enabled to provide fractional investing with real securities, something that is believed to be appealing to retail investors particularly, as they are the legal owners of the shares and benefit from dividend rights alongside other corporate actions.

This is in accordance with ESMA’s public statement on fractional shares to protect retail customers. Upvest can provide fractional trading with real securities by leveraging its brokerage and proprietary trading licences, granted by the German financial authority. Per the announcement, by enabling customers to invest as little as one EUR, Revolut believes it possible to attract an extensive range of investors who might otherwise not have considered investing.

Both companies are set to leverage Revolut’s current payment setup to ensure a frictionless UX. The Investment API lets the company use a single interface to access Upvest’s brokerage, settlement, and custody services, which keeps integration-related efforts to a minimum. What is more, the pan-European, flexible setup assists Revolut with expedited expansion across the EU with European stocks and ETFs and provide new use cases while remaining compliant with EU regulations.

Rolandas Juteika, Head of Wealth, and Trading (EEA) said that when looking at possible partners to enable access to ETFs and stocks listed in EEA markets to Europe-based customers, Upvest was Revolut’s preferred selected choice as they provided the infrastructure needed to offer ETFs to customers in an expedited time, shortly after the company’s EEA trading entity operationalisation was finalised.