Exclusive: Robinhood pushes back UK launch

Yes, markets are down and very volatile but fintech firms offering cheap entry into the stock market are looking like beneficiaries of the recent turmoil, especially compared to other digital disruptors. Robinhood, one of the most eagerly anticipated new launches in the space in the UK, with plans to take on the likes of Freetrade and Hargreaves Lansdown, is delaying its launch. 

Robinhood, which was founded in 2013 and sitting on a $7.6bn valuation, is one of the most well-known US fintech firms but had kept to its home market until annoucing last November that it would be taking on the UK’s competitive self-directed investor market. 

Wander Rutgers, Robinhood’s UK chief, told AltFi back then that the plan was to launch in the UK in Q1 of 2020. 

Earlier this month, free US stockbroking app Robinhood experienced an outage that caused some customers to lose up to tens of thousands of dollars on a day when the US stock market surged by $1.1trn.

A spokesperson for Robinhood, speaking to AltFi, said any timing change was not related to Covid-19 or recent outages in the US.

In the past year the digital wealth and personal investment market looked set to be a new battleground of fintech disruption and RobinHood, with $323m-worth of arrows in its quiver from its July Series E funding round in July, clearly sees the UK market as the most important to kick-start its wider global expansion.