Trade Republic and justTRADE have formed a partnership with Franklin Templeton to offer ETFs on the platforms in Germany and Austria.
ETF Stream reported the news a couple of days ago.
Thanks to this partnership, users of the Republic and justTRADE platforms will be able to trade the entire range of Franklin Templeton ETFs.
The ETFs of Franklin Templeton land in Germany thanks to the partnership with Trade Republic
Franklin Templeton offers a wide range of ETF.
The company also engages in investments in Digital Assets, so much so that one of its ETFs, EZBC, is indeed an ETF on Bitcoin.
This is one of the new ETFs listed on the US stock exchanges starting from January, and therefore not available in Europe.
EZBC for now owns less than 6,000 BTC, which is less than one twentieth of the number of BTC owned by the largest Bitcoin ETF in the world, that of BlackRock.
It is traded on the Cboe exchange in Chicago.
The news of the partnership with Trade Republic and justTRADE does not explain in detail which Franklin Templeton ETFs will be listed on the two European exchanges, but it can be assumed that only those authorized for European markets will be made available. Both Germany and Austria are part of the European Union.
Franklin Templeton is an American group, present in Germany since 2017 with some of its ETFs. Globally, it manages approximately 26 billion dollars in ETFs.
Trade Republic
Trade Republic Bank is a German online broker based in Berlin.
In particular, it allows trading via app on smartphone, thus targeting a wide retail audience.
Claims to have 4 million users in 17 different countries, and allows the exchange of stocks, bonds, criptovalute and derivatives.
Thanks to the partnership with Franklin Templeton, it will also offer European users the possibility to trade their ETF and ETP authorized for the European market.
It also declares that it has activated one million payment cards in Europe, and this gives an idea of how widespread its use is among retail investors and speculators.
Their platform is fully regulated, and the company operates more and more like a bank.
In fact, after the launch of the card, it is preparing to offer complete banking services.
ETF in Germany: The partnership between Trade Republic and Franklin Templeton
Thanks to the partnership with Franklin Templeton, users of the Trade Republic and justTRADE platforms will be able to trade ETFs through savings plans or individual trades. Moreover, the savings plans on ETFs will not have any fees.
This thing is quite important because Germany dominates the European retail financial market precisely thanks to the popularity of ETF savings plans.
According to data from BlackRock, in 2022 there were as many as 4.9 million investors who used savings plans on ETFs, and of these, a full 90% are in Germany. It is worth noting that in 2019 there were only 1.9 million, and in 2021 they had risen to three million.
Therefore, it is quite important that the German Trade Republic offers its 4 million customers the possibility to invest with savings plans on Franklin Templeton ETFs, moreover without commissions.
The partnership also involves another German broker, justTRADE.
As for Franklin Templeton, the goal is to target a younger clientele, namely those who purchase ETFs using broker smartphone apps.
The comment
The head of ETF distribution for Germany and Austria at Franklin Templeton, Martin Bechtloff, stated:
“For several years we have been collaborating with various brokerage platforms, which have proven to be important distribution channels for our ETF business. Additionally, while savings plans are appreciated by German and Austrian investors, our partnership with neobrokers allows us to increase access and visibility among younger investors.”
The head of distribution for Germany and Austria at Franklin Templeton, Stefan Bauer, added:
“Since we listed our first series of ETFs in Germany in 2017, we have witnessed an ever-growing demand for our expanding and competitively priced range of ETFs.”
The crypto ETF market
In the USA, the stock market debut of the new spot Bitcoin ETFs in January of this year has sparked great interest and achieved a significant result.
Despite this, however, the trading of these products on the stock exchange has not yet really taken off completely.
For example, in the last complete week, the overall trading volume of the main Bitcoin ETF, BlackRock’s IBIT, on the Nasdaq was just over 4 billion dollars, with the weekly record set in mid-March at 15.7 billion.
Instead, the sole BTC trades on Coinbase, the main American exchange, in the last full week almost reached 5 billion dollars, and in mid-March slightly exceeded 15 billion.
This means that, despite traditional stock exchanges being several orders of magnitude larger than crypto exchanges in terms of trading volume, the trades of the main Bitcoin ETF in the world are not higher than those of BTC trades on the main US crypto exchange.
So despite the success, there is still plenty of room for growth for these new products that allow taking a position on the price of Bitcoin using the classic platforms already in use to invest and speculate on traditional financial markets.
Moreover, the various crypto ETPs present in the European markets for several years have never really taken off. Therefore, there should still be ample room for growth in this market as well.
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