Robinhood Markets is planning to roll out more brokerage services in the U.K. as the fintech giant seeks to expands its business outside its home market of the U.S.
CEO Vlad Tenev told the media on Friday that Robinhood would start by offering margin trading in the weeks ahead, followed by options on U.S. equities. The firm’s strategy is to offer greater access to U.S. investment products as a means of differentiating itself from its peers in an already crowded market.
Robinhood began offering no-commission trading of U.S.-listed stocks in the U.K. in March this year, and Tenev said the platform is now looking into expanding to include trading in U.K.-listed stocks as well as offering retirement products to U.K. clients.
Robinhood was at the center of the meme-stock trading frenzy of 2021 in the U.S., when its transaction-based revenue soared to $1.4 billion, before falling back to $814 million in 2022 and $785 million last year. The discount broker has been struggling with inconsistent trading volumes, so it’s now seeking to broaden its appeal by launching more products and by expanding overseas.
The U.K. was Robinhood’s first major expansion outside of the U.S. The firm first tried to enter the market in 2020, but then postponed its launch to refocus its efforts on strengthening the firm’s core business in the U.S. It had also sought to buy Ziglu, a U.K.-based trading app, for $170 million in 2022, but that deal collapsed.
Robinhood was founded in 2013 by Stanford University roommates Tenev and Baiju Bhatt. The app they created promised to “democratize finance for all” by not charging fees for trades it executes.
Although Robinhood has suffered numerous technical problems and questions were raised about the suitability of some of its offerings, the app it created helped to spark an unprecedented rise in retail trading, particularly with options, and it forced other brokerages to follow suit with commission-free trading.
By Forbes’ calculations, Robinhood turned its cofounders into billionaires in September 2020 after a private funding round valued the firm at $11.7 billion. The Nasdaq-listed company is valued today at $20.1 billion, and the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires list shows Tenev and Bhatt currently have net worths of $1.4 billion and $1.5 billion, respectively.