Bitpanda announces trading of partial shares and ETFs
Austrian crypto trader Bitpanda will also allow its customers to buy partial shares and exchange-traded funds from April.
The Austrian crypto exchange operator is expanding its offering to include trading of partial shares and exchange-traded funds in April. Bitpanda made the announcement on its corporate blog on 9 March.
Low entry threshold for equity investments
Bitpanda customers will in future be able to buy and sell partial shares and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) commission-free via „Bitpanda Stocks“ in addition to Bitcoin Trader cryptocurrencies and precious metals. This will be possible with a minimum investment of just one euro, regardless of the market value of the respective share certificate.
Partial shares are shares in stocks. Instead of a whole share, the investor only holds a percentage amount of the respective paper. The instrument is used primarily in the USA to denominate high-priced securities in order to lower the barrier to entry. In contrast to whole shares, partial shares are only traded through brokers who offer a corresponding financial instrument for this purpose.
How Bitpanda will realise the partial shares is unknown so far. However, the company’s strong focus on crypto assets suggests an implementation via tokens.
As for the sub-shares and ETFs offered, it will initially start with a „beta selection“ for „some of the world’s most popular companies and ETFs“. On an information page of the company, there are references to so-called „blue chips“ such as Google, Tesla, Netflix, BMW, Visa, Starbucks, Amazon, Apple and Facebook.
As with other investment products, Bitpanda will offer uninterrupted trading 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Bitpanda wants to lure new customers with a randomly selected partial share in the equivalent of 5 to 200 euros, which will be credited to them free of charge when Bitpanda Stocks is launched.
Bitpanda is a recognised investment firm
At the beginning of March, Bitpanda announced that it had received a licence as an investment firm under the Austrian Securities Supervision Act. The licence was awarded to Bitpanda Financial Services GmbH, which will offer securities services as a subsidiary for Bitpanda in the future. In addition to investment activities, the licence also includes the authorisation to provide investment advice on financial instruments.