Cheapest stock broker - Fio

[glengoolie]

Hi,
I thought I will give you a tip for the cheapest stock broker in Europe. It is the Fio bank in Czechia - www.fio.cz . They are a standard bank but they also offer investing account. They currently support USA, CZ and DE stock exchanges. I have been with them for many years and been investing through them since 2019. Their broker account UI sucks big time and is confusing but you you don't need anything fancy in order to make an buy/sell order. They also have apps for your phone so that might be a better option, although I don't use them.

Anyway, the reason why I am mentioning this is that they have fixed pricing, which I have never seen in any other broker...and I was specifically looking if I could find a better deal...i haven't.
The pricing is very simple: you pay 7.95€ for order of 100 or less shares and 9.95€ for more than 100 shares. If you trade in thousands of shares, you will save a ton of money(you do your own math), especially if you trade often.

Of course, Czechia is in the EU/rope so they might not open up a bank and then the investment account for just anyone, you have to try it yourself and physical visit will be needed.

Note that orders are limited to 500 000$. If you need more you have to split the order into smaller orders. This is not their limitation but the limitation of their provider, Pershing LLC.

The bank itself and their services is OK. Don't expect world class treatment and operation. I had some issues with them throughout the years but you are getting a lot for very little so I always keep that in mind.

 

[Silvio]

I had an awful experience with them, opened an account, deposited some cash. A month later I sent them ONE small wire from a company I fully own, very small wire from an very expensive and legitimate bank. They completely blocked the funds and the wire and it took months and many meetings in person to release it. They were extremely incompetent, useless on the phone, useless in person, their offices are garbage and have shitty furniture that look like they were stolen from a DDR garage sale after the fall of the Berlin wall. Few months later they just shut down my account with some few EUR left in it without any explanation or any letter.

And no it is not a problem with my residency\citizenship as I have never had any similar problem with any other bank, in EU or outside. Thanks for the recommendatoin and I'm happy it works for you but for me it was by far one of the worst banks I have ever dealt with.

Had an awful experience with another Czech bank as well. Stay away from Czech banks, they used to be cool 5 years ago but the party is over.

 

[Silvio]

Also I am almost sure that Flatex.de is cheaper.

 

[glengoolie]

i agree with most of what you said but i do not believe they closed down your account or blocked transaction without any explanation.

 

[Silvio]

Literally no explanation:
"Please explain the purpose of this wire"
"I am wiring myself dividends from my own company, here is the certificate of incumbency showing that I am the only shareholder and only director and here is the board decision for payment of dividend"
"Compliance will check"
After 10 emails of "Any updates?"
"Compliance asks again what is this wire"
"..."
Repeat for months and months on end.

As usual with all these garbage banks, you can't talk to anybody, nobody knows anything, everything is handled in the "Central office" and you have to deal with the clueless morons at the branch.

I really hate this bank and I hope all their branches burn. I wasted so much time on this s**t, getting to Prague just to deal with these idiots.

Eventually after months they agreed to return the wire where it came from.

 

[glengoolie]

ok, i see. well, this is the same crap all over europe where if you want to withdraw more than 5000€ you have to provide the purpose and source of the money. which angers me to no end. but it is literally everywhere, even in usa they have 5k limit before reporting to irs or something like that. all under the umberlla of anti money laundering laws, which is utter bs, they jsut want to keep the cash out of poeple's hands since it allows wealth transfer without a trace. but i digress.

in your case it is truly weird if you had provided the documents, but i guess that is to be expected when dealing with offshore stuff. even nomad capitalist(youtube) often mentions dificulties with banks. i will make a note of this. as they say, learn from other people's mistakes.

 

[jangpark]

I had an awful experience with them, opened an account, deposited some cash. A month later I sent them ONE small wire from a company I fully own, very small wire from an very expensive and legitimate bank. They completely blocked the funds and the wire and it took months and many meetings in person to release it. They were extremely incompetent, useless on the phone, useless in person, their offices are garbage and have shitty furniture that look like they were stolen from a DDR garage sale after the fall of the Berlin wall. Few months later they just shut down my account with some few EUR left in it without any explanation or any letter.

And no it is not a problem with my residency\citizenship as I have never had any similar problem with any other bank, in EU or outside. Thanks for the recommendatoin and I'm happy it works for you but for me it was by far one of the worst banks I have ever dealt with.

Had an awful experience with another Czech bank as well. Stay away from Czech banks, they used to be cool 5 years ago but the party is over.

Hi, which bank and stock broker are good in your personal experience please?

 

[Silvio]

ok, i see. well, this is the same crap all over europe where if you want to withdraw more than 5000€ you have to provide the purpose and source of the money. which angers me to no end. but it is literally everywhere, even in usa they have 5k limit before reporting to irs or something like that. all under the umberlla of anti money laundering laws, which is utter bs, they jsut want to keep the cash out of poeple's hands since it allows wealth transfer without a trace. but i digress.

in your case it is truly weird if you had provided the documents, but i guess that is to be expected when dealing with offshore stuff. even nomad capitalist(youtube) often mentions dificulties with banks. i will make a note of this. as they say, learn from other people's mistakes.

It wasn't even an offshore, everything was from bank in EU, company in EU, nothing offshore about it. Just an incompetent bank.

 

[Silvio]

Hi, which bank and stock broker are good in your personal experience please?

Depends what your goals are, are you a trader\investor\buy-and-hold investor\frequent trader? It will all change.
If you're a trader you need a broker with low commissions, like IB. If you are an investor you probably care more about custody fees. Then it's also a matter of portfolio size, I guess if you are over $5M you will prefer to put it in a real bank, not in some discount broker. Here are some good suggestions based on your trading style (only in CH though): Compare trading services and save money

Overall the good brokers were already mentioned in the forum: Saxo, SwissQuote, Flatex, IB, and then for real banks (and not just brokers with bank license) it depends how big your portfolio is.

 

[glengoolie]

just to tl;dr, my point was that this is the cheapest stock broker because it has fixed fees and not per-share + SE fee and trading through it works just fine. no one is saying one has to use their banking, since it is a bank, but if someone is looking for cheap trading option, this is it.

 

[daxbr]

Do they charge commissions in addition to order flow? or promise to forgo that?

 

[glengoolie]

no, as i have wrote, they have fixed fees. nothing more to it. but of course you pay fee when you buy and when you sell as well. but i think that goes without saying. if you make trades with more than 995 shares, you will save money compared to any other broker that charges fee + per share.