Lightyear investing has made these major updates

The Lightyear investing app is undergoing some updates, as recently announced by Lightyear and it’s a mix of good and bad news for investors.

Lightyear investing app offering more stocks and ETFs

As part of the announcement Lightyear had this to say:

I have some exciting news to share with you! UK stocks, European stocks & Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are about to be released. From Tesco to Vodafone and Vanguard to iShares, we’ll have a huge selection of your local favourites alongside global ETFs going live from the 17th of October 2022.

Lightyear

More choice are always good. It’s great that the Lightyear investing app is going to offer more stocks and more interestingly ETFs going forward. ETFs offer a great way to easily diversify a portfolio.

However, there are other changes afoot.

Lightyear investing app announce pricing changes

As a result of being able to offer UK users access to UK and European stocks alongside global ETFs, there are going to be structural and pricing changes.

To bring you these new products – and even more in the future – we need to move your account to sit underneath our European business.

LIGhtyear

So what does this mean?

Consequently, it means pricing changes!

With the launch of UK stocks & ETFs, you’ll still have a completely free way to invest on Lightyear by depositing and investing in GBP. Investing in global markets is something that’s traditionally both costly & time-consuming, and we’re working hard behind the scenes to connect those dots for you, whilst remaining the lowest-cost investment platform in Europe.

From 15/09/22, Lightyear’s pricing will be:

No trading fees

No account fees

Free multi-currency account

0.35% flat foreign exchange fee

LIGHTYEAR

It appears the only charge being introduced by Lightyear at this stage is to charge for forex conversion.

If you are in the UK and have an interest in UK stocks and ETFs then it appears there won’t be much change. However, if you have £1000 to invest and you want to do so in US stocks for example, the cost to you will be £3.50 to get US dollars to do so in the multi-currency app and another 0.35% to convert back to your local currency to withdraw any funds.

Some might think 0.7% is ok, some might not.

Is Lightyear forex fee expensive?

Well it’s not as cheap as Trading 212*, coming in at 0.15% but it is cheaper than Freetrade at 0.45% and places like Hargreaves Lansdown* at 1%, Interactive Investor at 1.5%, and AJ Bell at 0.75%.

It remains to be seen what comes next for Lightyear and they tease some new features on the way too…

We aim to have launched a number of new products and features, as well as the first iteration of our premium account, so there’ll be much more to look forward to.

Lightyear

If you are interested in signing up and trying Lightyear, you can get $10 free when you sign up with my code PPC10 at golightyear.com and deposit £1. Just remember your capital is at risk and investments can go up or down.

If Lightyear isn’t for you, perhaps you might be more interested in comparing Trading 212 vs Vanguard