The Robinhood funding app is see on a smartphone on this picture illustration on June 24, 2020 in Washington,DC.Jim Watson | AFP | Getty PicturesRo
The Robinhood funding app is see on a smartphone on this picture illustration on June 24, 2020 in Washington,DC.
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Pictures
Robinhood has postponed the launch of its fashionable stock-trading app within the U.Ok. indefinitely.
The Menlo Park, California-based fintech agency informed folks signed as much as its U.Ok. waitlist Tuesday that it had put the brakes on its world growth ambitions to focus totally on its house market.
“Loads has modified on this planet over the previous few months, and we have made the troublesome resolution to postpone our U.Ok. launch indefinitely,” a Robinhood spokesperson mentioned in a press release. “As an organization, we’re refocusing our efforts on strengthening our core enterprise within the U.S.”
“Though our world growth plans are on maintain for now, we’re dedicated to democratising finance for extra folks world wide. We look ahead to the day once we can deliver this mission to the U.Ok.”
The corporate opened a waitlist to British prospects in November after acquiring dealer authorization from the Monetary Conduct Authority final summer season. A U.Ok. growth would have put Robinhood head-to-head with incumbent on-line brokers like Hargreaves Lansdown in addition to rival fintech start-ups like Revolut and Freetrade.
CNBC understands that Robinhood will shortly pull its U.Ok. web site and shut the waitlist, whereas buyer e-mail addresses might be deleted from the corporate’s techniques to guard customers’ privateness. The corporate plans to switch most of its 10 workers within the U.Ok. to U.S. groups, nonetheless others might be let go.
The agency has change into a well-liked entry level for first-time buyers within the U.S., rising from 1 million customers in 2016 to over 13 million this yr. It skilled a wild surge in buying and selling volumes firstly of the coronavirus pandemic which resulted in a collection of main outages in March.
Robinhood discovered itself in sizzling water following the suicide of a 20-year-old dealer who mentioned he misplaced $730,000 on the free buying and selling app. The corporate responded by pledging to make it tougher for customers to entry choices buying and selling, and by making a $250,000 donation to the American Basis for Suicide Prevention.
The agency was final valued at $8.6 billion after elevating one other $320 million earlier this month. There was a lot hypothesis about whether or not the corporate will go public, nonetheless Robinhood hasn’t set a date for a possible preliminary public providing.