Trading 212 Expert Review: Is It Safe For Trading, Investing, ISAs & Saving?

Is Trading 212 a good investing app?

Trading 212 is great for investing and saving as fees are low and interest rates are high. It has a highly rated app and online trading platform offering commission-free stock, ETF, and CFD trading, fractional shares, practice accounts, educational resources, and market analysis tools, regulated by the FCA. But there are downsides, which you should be aware of before opening an account with Trading 212.

Why do some people think Trading 212 is bad?

Trading 212 can be bad because it offers high-risk leverage products like CFDs alongside an app that is aimed at new and inexperienced investors. That is the answer to the question you may have asked if you’ve stumbled onto this page because you are looking for reasons not to trade with Trading 212.

But Trading 212 is not a bad investment platform, there are just some bad points about it. I’ve worked in financial marketing for 20 years and if you are going to praise a product, you also have to list it’s cons. Be balanced, as compliance would say. This is even despite the fact that they are offering a massive 5.2% interest on cash held in an investment account with them. It’s clearly a loss leader, but one thing Trading212 are good at is promotions to get bums on seats.

In fact, when we didn’t include Trading 212 in our 2020 Awards survey, there was outrage on their community forum. So one of the things that they are obviously good at is customer service and giving people what they want. I’ve noticed that a lot of free investing apps have developed an almost cult-like status.

We’ve also covered them a bit when we looked at whether free stock broking is here to stay and they also get a mention in our guide to fractional shares. Both are two massive positives for the industry because the cheaper it is to invest the more people will do it. And, if you can’t afford to spread your risk across a few different companies when a single Tesla share costs $267 giving people the ability to just dip their toe in and buy $50 of five shares instead of just one means people can diversify.

But there are two things that don’t sit well. Every time I flick on social media, I see a lot of “investment gurus” saying that to start investing you should buy an S&P 500 tracker with an app, and a lot of tag, or link to Trading 212.

Which is fine, because that’s actually not bad advice. An SPX tracker is a good way to invest in a diverse range of 500 of the largest listed companies in the US. And Trading 212 certainly has a good low-cost offering for new investors.

The other is their free share offer. Which again on the surface is fine. It’s an incentive for opening an account. But I was having a chat, a rather lively one with a friend the other day about, how free offers encourage the wrong type of investing. The investing for investing’s sake.

I see his point. You shouldn’t invest if you can’t afford it. But then again, can you afford not to invest?

Because when it comes to investing, the earlier you start the better chance you have at making money in the long run.

And if you get cross-sold into a CFD account and lose money trading, what’s worse? Not having started on your investing journey at all and waiting till you hit 40 to start investing. Or, getting carried away a bit and thinking there is easy money to be made in the markets in your 20s, then learning your lesson quickly.

And realising that you should stick the the fundamentals because good things, sometimes take time.

Whether you think that Trading 212 is “bad” is another matter and we want to know what you think. It all goes towards helping people make more informed decisions about where to trade and invest.

Is Trading 212 safe for trading, investing & ISAs?

Trading 212 should be considered a safe investment platform and app for UK customers as they are regulated by the FCA and have to adhear to specific capital requirement conditions and treat customers fairly. But, as will all investing it is possible to lose money when investing or trading through them, so you should not consider your investment decisions as risk free, especially if you are trading CFDs which are very high risk.

Is your cash money safe in a Trading 212 ISA?

A reader recently wrote in to Good Money Guide concerned about the safety of their savings in a Trading 212 cash ISA, so personal finance expert Laura Miller investigated.

Concerns about safety

I am not a risk taking investor – I just research where my old age funds are best invested at no risk.

Obviously the T212 no risk ISA is attractive and I get that it’s a loss leader to try and draw you into the higher risk investments. I liked your YouTube article on T212. I like T212’s app & their approach is refreshing, but…

As T212 are saying the ISA monies are FSCS covered as are held in/across the banks they reference to, I wanted to know (preferably in a nutshell) – if they are not directly recognised by the FSCS how do we or indeed the FSCS know where the monies are held in the unlikely event things go awry with T212?

I emailed T212 with that question and I got a generic response reflecting the generic FSCS spiel. So for me I held back from putting or transferring ISA monies to the ISA account I had opened and opted for Paragon as a safer bet.

Wonder if there is a simple answer to this reticence on my part where I just lack knowledge or whether it’s an issue that others are asking.

Appreciate a view from you.

How your funds are protected at Trading 212 – It’s more complicated than you think…

Let’s look first at what Trading 212 – also known as T212 – says about how your money is protected.

Its website says customers’ money – cash and investments – is held in client money bank accounts at some of the world’s largest banks – and kept completely separate from T212’s own bank accounts.

Customer money is ring-fenced and there are legally binding agreements that your money belongs only to you and no one else.

In terms of investments with Trading 212, these are held at Interactive Brokers – the largest electronic trading platform in the United States by number of average daily trades.

Invested money is ring-fenced and held in a pooled account, completely segregated from T212’s own assets.

So if T212 fails, Interactive Brokers just gives you back your invested cash it has been holding.

Your question, however, was about T212’s cash ISA.

Currently a market leader paying 5.2% interest, if there really is no risk to your capital Trading 212’s cash ISA looks like a very good deal.

You specifically asked about how much protection you would have from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) if you moved money into a T212 cash ISA and T212 went bust.

So I asked the FSCS.

It told me if Trading 212 failed is not covered itself for deposits – which is how a cash ISA is categorised – though it is covered for investments up to £85,000.

However, the FSCS points out T212’s cash ISAs are held with various different banks that are protected by the FSCS – if those banks failed, the FSCS would cover monies up to £85,000 held in the cash ISAs.

The FSCS says the best way for customers to find out exactly which banks hold their T212 ISA money is by asking T212 directly.

They can then check the deposit bank T212 uses and how much of their money is FSCS protected by entering the details into the FSCS Bank and Savings Protection Checker tool: https://www.fscs.org.uk/check/check-your-money-is-protected

Internal teams at the FSCS will know where firms like Trading 212 hold customer money, but that isn’t something the compensation body publishes publicly.

T212 itself gives two examples of banks where it holds client cash, Barclays and JP Morgan, both financial services giants and unlikely to fail – though you’d be FSCS protected if they did.

The response from the FSCS chimes with what T212 says on its website.

If the banks where T212 holds your money fail and they are unable to return your cash, the FSCS can award up to £85,000 in compensation per bank.

It is worth remembering, however – and to its credit T212 points this out – the £85,000 limit applies to the total amount of money you hold at any specific bank, whether it is deposited by Trading 212, other providers, or you.

So for example, if you hold £85,000 of your own money at Barclays, any money you have with Trading 212 also held at Barclays will be above the FSCS protection threshold – and so therefore not covered.

The percentage of your cash held at each bank is listed in the interest on the cash tab in the T212 app.

You asked for clarification in a nutshell – in short a cash ISA with T212 is FSCS protected up to £85,000 in the event the firm fails. But if you do open a T212 cash ISA you should check which bank it is using to hold your cash, so you don’t exceed the FSCS protection per bank threshold of £85,000.

Trading 212 debit card expands to 20 EU countries

Trading 212 is set to bring its debit card to 20 countries in Europe. For the new card, the trading and investment platform has partnered with US-based issuer Marqueta, which provides services including fraud prevention tools to flag high-risk transactions.

It comes around a year after Trading 212 first launched the multi-currency debit card in the UK market, issued by Paynetics UK, which offers 0.5% cashback on spending up to £20 a month.

The card also offers foreign exchange at the interbank rate, with no mark-up or fee. Other UK investment apps which offer a debit card include Revolut and eToro, though these do not appear to offer cashback on payments under their standard terms.

Trading 212 has been headquartered in the UK since 2013, nine years after it was founded in Bulgaria.

Among the highlights of the app include that it offers fractional shares, zero commission trading and free shares for new users.

The firm also offers a Cash Individual Savings Account and a Stocks & Shares ISA, the latter of which only charges 0.15% on foreign exchange conversions and 0.7% for deposits above £2,000.

The firm also offers one of the best interst rates on uninvested cash currently available at 4.35% (as of 19/05/2025).

This has to be enabled through the app, as will place your cash in qualifying money market funds and banks.

Crypto on Trading 212

In 2024, the company received a cryptocurrency license in Cyprus but has yet to reveal if it has further plans to enter this space.