Investing app Public sponsored by celebrities establishes in the U.K.

July 14, 2023: On Thursday, American stock brokerage startup Public established its services in the U.K., marking its initial global expansion launch in 2017.

The app, supported by celebrities including Will Smith and skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, will deliver U.K. users commission-free trading in over 5,000 U.S.-listed products during the country’s regular trading hours.

Public expectancies to broaden its U.K. offering over time to include different asset classes known in the U.S., such as ETFs, U.S. state bonds, and crypto assets. The business also plans to launch an “investment plans” tool that lets users create customized recurring investments.

Public’s U.K. debut will see it compete with a flurry of well-established digital brokerage firms like AJ Bell and Hargreaves Lansdown, which make money from commission charges and management fees, as well as upstarts such as Revolut, Freetrade, and eToro, where revenue comes mainly from subscriptions and other fees.

It is a heavily congested market but Leif Abraham, Public’s co-CEO, touted the company’s lower foreign exchange fees as one element separating it from the pack in the U.K.

“Most of our competitors in the U.K. will charge currency conversion fees on every single trade,” Abraham told in an interview. “We only do it with the money deposited, and our fees will be dramatically lower than most of our competitors.”

The public will charge 30 base points, or 0.3%, on each deposit to convert British pounds into U.S. dollars.

The firm has European roots, founded in September 2019 by Jannick Malling and Abraham, from Denmark and Germany, respectively, who now serve as co-CEOs.

The platform, which lets people build portfolios and invest in stocks and cryptocurrency, hit over 1 million users in 2021.

It benefited significantly from the GameStop saga of early 2021, which saw the share price of the U.S. game retailer and other heavily-shorted companies skyrocket on the back of buzz from an online community of investors.

The period they have shone a light on the controversial “Payment for Order Flow” practice, where market makers such as Citadel Securities pay brokerages to route customer orders to the firm.