Trade Republic with kickback and 4 million customers for its 5th birthday

Europe's leading broker, Trade Republic, reaches milestone of over 4 million clients on its 5th anniversary and launches Visa card linking payments and savings plans

Berlin, January 09, 2024 - Trade Republic celebrates its fifth anniversary with over 4 million clients, who together manage assets of around 35 billion euros. Despite passing on ECB interest rates of 4 percent per year to customers, Trade Republic closed both the financial and calendar year 2023 profitably.

Trade Republic provides millions of Europeans with easy and free access to the capital markets for wealth accumulation and retirement planning. The company, which operates in 17 European countries, offers investments in various investment products and is a fully regulated bank supervised by the Bundesbank and BaFin.

Credit card with kickback

To mark its anniversary, Trade Republic is launching a new Visa card that combines payments with savings. Customers receive a 1% saveback bonus on card payments, which is automatically added to their savings plan. In addition, they can round up amounts to save continuously.

In the last five years, 4 million people have started to put their money to work for them with us. This makes us one of the most important banks for a new generation of young savers.

Christian Hecker, co-founder of Trade Republic

The Trade Republic card is available in three variants: Mirror card (50 euro one-off issuing fee), Classic card (5 euro one-off issuing fee) and a free virtual card. All variants offer identical benefits, such as free cash withdrawals worldwide, with a 1 euro fee for withdrawals under 100 euros.

The Trade Republic card offers customers a 1 percent saveback bonus at no monthly cost. This makes it an attractive offer on the market.

Marsel Nikaj, Vice President Product at Trade Republic

Advantages of credit cards with kickback

Anyone who has not yet had anything to do with a kickback card will find Trade Republic's offer very interesting at first glance. The card is to be offered virtually free of charge. The classic plastic card costs €5 and a metal card costs €50. The virtual card offers almost only advantages, especially in the area of recurring expenses. Streaming services, digital subscriptions, etc. can be paid for permanently with the card and bring 1% into your own account.

In addition, the card should also allow withdrawals over €100 to be made free of charge. If this works, then this is a very affordable alternative to most traditional banks. These now sometimes charge quite high fees at ATMs, so that the customer also has a clear advantage here. This would have a particular effect when traveling abroad.

Disadvantages and caution with cashback cards

As beautiful and elegant as metal cards may seem at first glance, you should be careful with sharp pencils. At a cost of €50, a card turnover of €5,000 is required for it to pay for itself. And that means you have to address the customer's self-belief at the latest. 1% saveback is a sweet promise, but the bottom line is still 99% expenditure.

Many will remember the cards from Crypto.com, which promised a double-digit kickback depending on the investment. This was paid out in the company's own currency, Cro, and subsequently led to a huge hype that resulted in high losses for many users after its collapse.

Rapid growth continues

Over the past five years, Trade Republic has not only become the largest European broker, but has also received a full banking license from the ECB. Despite passing on interest to customers, the bank closed the last financial year profitably. Christian Hecker confirms the plans for the future: "Over the next five years, we will work on establishing a major financial institution in Europe."

Trade Republic offers a wide range of investment opportunities in savings plans, shares, ETFs, bonds, derivatives, cryptocurrencies and, since January 2024, the Trade Republic card with a 1 percent saveback bonus. The Berlin-based company was founded in 2015 and has received capital from various investors, including Accel, Peter Thiels Founders Fund, Ontario Teachers', Sequoia and TCV.