ABN AMRO Clearing adds European shares to fractional investment infrastructure for commercial clients
Innovation
As of this week, clients of online broker BUX can make fractional investments in European ETFs (trackers). The underlying infrastructure is provided by ABN AMRO Clearing (Banking as a Service). In the coming months, more and more European products will gradually be added to the range of shares open to fractional investing.
Buying parts of shares
The idea of fractional investing is that an investor can purchase not just whole shares, but also part of a share. This can be useful if a share is very expensive or if the investor wants to invest a round sum, 500 euros for example, in shares of a certain company.
Plenty of interest
In the US, fractional investing has been around for some time, and has become hugely popular. A few European brokers utilise the US infrastructure. Given the legal and supervisory hurdles that this involves, however, twenty-one months ago ABN AMRO Clearing started work to develop its own infrastructure to offer in Europe.
Early this year, ABN AMRO Clearing issued a press release announcing the launch of its fractional investment infrastructure in Europe. From that moment on, it was possible to invest in parts of US shares. As of this week, European shares have been added to the fractional investment universe.
Right from the launch, BUX clients showed plenty of interest in fractional investing. Go to their website to find more information about volumes and which shares are popular.
Banking as a Service
The cooperation between BUX and ABN AMRO is a perfect example of the power of APIs, cloud-technology and Banking as a Service models.
It was already possible for clients of brokers such as BUX to handle their investments from a bank account with ABN AMRO Clearing (Banking as a Service). Now, they can use their accounts to buy and sell both full shares and fractional shares. An innovative cloud-based administration system keeps meticulous track of what fractional purchases an investor has made, without ABN AMRO needing to buy more than one additional full share per fund.
Smart technologies
Smart and reliable technologies are creating more and more opportunities for customised investor services. Rutger Schellens, CEO of ABN AMRO Clearing explains, “We are active in the business-to-business segment and offer services to retail brokers such as BUX. These innovations help us to retain clients and further boost our impact and income.”
Yorick Naeff, CEO at BUX adds, “The launch of fractional investing marks an important new chapter in the normalisation of investing in Europe. As the first Dutch broker to offer fractional investing in individual stocks to retail investors, BUX continues to lead the evolution of neobrokerage in Europe.
