Cboe Europe Partners to Give UK Retail Investors Access to European Markets

Cboe Europe and EuroCCP have partnered with commission-free platform, Freetrade, to give retail investors in the UK access to the pan-European markets. Through direct memberships with the pan-European exchange and clearinghouse the platform has extended its user access, beginning with German and Finnish listed stocks and with plans to extend this remit further to include Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden. Retail investors will be able to access liquidity in stocks and exchange traded funds (ETFs) via Cboe Europe and pan-European equities and exchange traded fund (ETFs) exchange Equiduct. The retail investment platform has also employed the services of clearinghouse, EuroCCP, and settlement infrastructure provider, Clearstream, via a direct membership to support its users with their clearing and risk mitigation post-trade operations. Launched in 2018, the Freetrade platform claims to facilitate trades for 1.2 million retail investors and to be the only platform that grants UK retail investors direct access to the European markets as opposed to investing via a CREST depository interest (CDI). Following the addition of the European access, Freetrade said it now offers access to over 6,000 stocks and ETFs across, Europe, the US and the UK.