Brokers sit between businesses that need money and those willing to invest. With the disruptive power of digital banking, savers, investors and traders are demanding a speeded-up, reliable and robust service from their brokers, an attitude that means old approaches are being swept away.

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flatexDEGIRO is the leading pan-European online brokerage, serving clients in 18 countries across the continent. The company is listed in Germany with offices in Germany, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Austria, handled over 91 million transactions for customers in 2021, totalling more than EUR 350 billion.

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It is a good position from which to attract even more customers, says Muhammad Said Chahrour, Chief Financial Officer at flatexDEGIRO:

“If we look to European countries, there are 250 million people that don't have a brokerage account and 40 million people whose account is with old, slow incumbents. So flatexDEGIRO has a dual strategy: to win market share with a quarter of a billion people without access to an online brokerage. And to steal market share by convincing clients that they're better off with us.”

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What gives this company the edge above others? Stephan Simmang, Chief Technology Officer at flatexDEGIRO says that the business lives on its technology offer:

“We own the whole value chain end to end, and whatever we do technology-wise will support the business perfectly. Roughly half of our 1,000 employees are technology people. What makes us special is that we own 100 percent of the code.”

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A further attraction to customers, says Frank Niehage, Chief Executive Officer at flatexDEGIRO, is that they are able to be extremely competitive:

“We offer lowest prices all over Europe because 99 percent of what we need to do in order to run this business is under one roof. We own the systems and the platform and therefore we are able to offer our services at a low price.”

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Stephan Simmang says that the key to building customer numbers is in attracting long-term investors to the system:

“The whole investing climate has changed. I think everybody comprehends that they have to invest at least for their retirement. Convenience is everything and technology is the big driver behind that. We have to make it very easy for people to use technology in order to do a trade in three clicks.”

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flatexDEGIRO has an ambitious vision: by 2026, the company aims to become an independent European financial supermarket with up to 8 million customers and at least 250 million transactions processed annually. This will be achieved by expanding the market position in the core markets Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, while seeking rapid growth in Western and Southwestern Europe.

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Simmang says that the company’s reputation for innovation - they were one of the drivers behind an early home banking interface, for example - means that they are trusted to deliver technology solutions:

“We run an in-house private cloud for other companies and whatever we could do in order to deliver a better service for our clients, we try to implement. Together with the European Space Agency we even enacted the first trade ever in space. We had to set up a piece of software on that satellite, which has a limited amount of RAM. We drew a whole lot of learnings for our platform with regards to latency, robustness, scalability, and resilience.”

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Here on planet earth, Muhammad Said Chahrour says that these experiments in space have helped shape a vision for a transforming future:

“We have a clear philosophy and mission to change an industry. We want to retailise capital market access. It's not just to be a cheap offer of a service, it’s about revolutionizing the whole financial brokerage industry, and to allow many more clients access. We all have to take care of our wealth in the face of rising inflation and negative interest in continental Europe.”

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For Muhammad Said Chahrour, the company’s future lies in the leverage of their brand’s knowledge and expertise with fresh ideas, new ways of working and listening closely to the needs of clients.

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That future will be green: Frank Niehage says that ESG plays an important role within the company as it does for investors, and they are determined to provide opportunities for clients to invest in sustainability:

“Flatex Green allows clients to invest into sustainable asset classes, such as sustainable investment funds or sustainable ETF products. Beyond that we have started a documentary to demystify investing and to allow clients to better understand how easy and sustainable investing can be.”