Lightyear, the brokerage firm where Virgin owner Richard Branson is invested, has just announced remove fees from your savings account preserve profitability around 3.70% at a time when further interest rate cuts are expected from the European Central Bank. In this way, the platform intends that its clients do not notice the effect of this drop in a product intended for defensive profiles who, as deposits are already beginning to experience, will have no choice but to gradually adapt their performance to the new environment of monetary assets.
These savings accounts, available in euros, pounds and dollars and which have BlackRock money market funds as underlyinghad a cost of 0.25%, of which ten basis points were made up of the management commission of said funds, which was very low because they were very conservative vehicles. Thus, the performance of the Lightyear account in euros has seen its profitability decrease from the 3.84% with which they were born in May to around 3.70% that they can now offer, due to the new path taken by the central banks.
Savings accounts have become a very popular vehicle among these types of platforms given the attractive profitability they have been able to offer since central banks raised interest rates.
The change comes as the platform, founded four years ago by Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, started operating in Spanish (until now it did so in English) to facilitate transactions for its clients, a year after its launch in Spain, a market in which several similar operators are establishing themselves thanks to the ease of distribution of ETFs due to their low cost.
In fact, Lightyear has seen assets managed in Spain multiply by five, something the company does not specify, thanks to the fact that its clients “have massively opted for ETFs, without execution fees, in which more than 25% of users invest locally”, they explain.
On the platform you can also buy shares of Ibex companies, in addition to more than 4,000 international securities and exchange-traded funds. And the company Sokk and Aamer, which has offices in London and Tallinn (Estonia), does not rule out offering new products adapted to the particularities of Spanish investors.
Álvaro Quesada Vargas, Head of Growth at Lightyear, assures that “in a market where traditional banks impose restrictions and apply hidden commissions, Lightyear breaks the mold by offering Spanish savers a transparent and free option to obtain a return on their capital, albeit lower. We are delighted to continue offering products created to help Spaniards invest with excellent results.
