A group of ex-managers from DeGiro have banded together to enter the market for investments in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with the crypto platform Finst. They want to do this according to the same concept as with DeGiro: through low rates and more transparency.
Crypto platform live since January
On January 9 of this year Finnish officially launched an online broker platform for investing in crypto. The company has worked hard on the platform and registration with De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB). This registration is mid-December of 2022 handed in.
The timing of the launch turned out to be almost perfect in retrospect. Bitcoin’s price finally started moving after a long time after the turn of the year and even rose by more than 20%. Although our launch probably had no influence on this, we were still happy with this result. However, the FTX scandal was a setback. It did highlight the need for a secure and transparent broker for crypto investments, something we are working hard on.
Create an Account
Creating a new account to start trading on Finst is relatively easy. On the Finst homepage, by clicking the ‘Open free account’ Clicking will take you to the registration form. Here you enter the standard things when creating a new account, such as an e-mail address and password.
You will then be asked to download Finst’s app, which can be found in both the Android store and the iOS store. You complete the registration process via the app: here you upload the latest requirements, such as a photo of your passport.
Supported Cryptocurrencies
The Finst platform offers 43 crypto trading pairs at the time of publishing this article, including popular coins like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and more. Although they may not offer as much as the longer established parties in the Netherlands, they do have a nice offer. This offer will also be expanded over time. The platform has already expanded its trading pairs by 15 pieces since its launch.
If the trading pair you are looking for is not yet available, there is a chance that this will be the case in the (near) future. Through this page you can find all the current trading pairs on the Finst platform.
What makes Finland special?
With the new crypto platform, Finst intends to challenge other already established crypto parties. They want to conquer the crypto investor market in the Netherlands, among others.
One of the most important weapons to do that are the low transaction costs that Finst charges and the degree of transparency.
The platform therefore promises an average of 82% lower transaction costs than the other crypto trading parties that are active in the Netherlands. Various parties are compared with each other on the website. You can do this comparison here find.
Also, the crypto company reportedly does not work with spreads. This means that you will never get the best price of the moment with parties that do; they actually earn from exchange rate differences here. Finst is transparent and does not affect this.
Trick previously performed at DeGiro
Finst seems to want to do DeGiro’s trick again: disrupt the market with super low costs. This is of course no coincidence: a large part of Finst’s team comes from De Giro.
In 2019, DeGiro was sold to the German broker named Flatex. At one point she implemented drastic changes in the company. However, this was not the reason for the departure of Julien Vallet, one of the co-founders of Finst, to start something new. He said the following about this:
“The reason for my departure was purely personal. I was part of the core team at DeGiro for 7 years and we reached the number 1 position in the Netherlands. When we also became number 1 in France, I decided it was a good time to do something new.”
The trick also seems to work, because Finst is currently one of the fastest growing crypto platforms in the Netherlands with reportedly already thousands of investors on the platform.
Investment from founder DeGiro
This new thing turned out to be crypto investing; something they had been keeping an eye on for a long time. And in this crypto market they saw opportunities for improvement. One of these points was the relatively high transaction that is paid by private individuals at various parties.
When the founders presented their idea for Finst to Gijs Nagel, the co-founder and for many years the face of DeGiro’s success story, he was very enthusiastic. Not much later he became a co-shareholder of Finst, together with Finch Capital.
Lack of security and trust
A number of other important issues, apart from the rates, are a lack of structure and security, which is widely present in the traditional financial world. Finst is also trying to address this.
An important condition for this is that, as a trading platform, the assets in which you invest remain separate from your own balance sheet.
Proper risk management is also sometimes difficult to find at some parties. Consider, for example, the FTX exchange, which collapsed last year. For example, who guarantees that investors’ funds are not lent to third parties?
In the case of Finst, everything runs through a third-party account with the bank Bunq . This has resulted in a more robust structure.
Finst has also developed a platform for desktop, iPhone, iPad and Android, which gives customers access to extensive analysis and information resources about crypto trading. According to Vallet, current providers are failing here. “We offer much more insight, starting with something very fundamental: how is my wallet performing against the market?”
These features will contribute to increased investor confidence. Together with the competitive prices, this should lead investors to switch to Finst. “Investors see the difference between a party that is based in an exotic country and lends assets, and our platform that is embedded in the Dutch banking world.”
Big plans
With DeGiro’s impressive growth in mind, Finst is not modest in his ambitions. The goal is to become the largest crypto platform in Europe within 5 years, made possible by the 38 million investors in Europe who, like the Dutch, face similar challenges such as high costs and lack of transparency in countries such as France and Germany. Finst wants to make the same difference in these countries as it does in the Netherlands.
Trade up to $5,000 in Cryptos with no transaction fees
There is a promotion at Finst until the end of this month. Each new user can trade up to €5,000 during the first 2 weeks with no transaction fees. To take advantage of the promotion, you can this link or register with the promo code ‘FINST5000’. Creating an account is easy and you can purchase all your favorite crypto coins within 5 minutes. In addition, there is no minimum deposit amount and no fees are charged when depositing money.