Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Wealthsimple launching zero-commission trading platform
Globe and Mail | Clare O’Hara | Aug 16, 2018
Wealthsimple Inc., Canada’s largest robo-adviser, is infiltrating the discount brokerage business with the launch of a new trading platform that will allow investors to buy, sell and track stocks and exchange-traded funds with commission-free trading.
The online portfolio manager – which manages more than $2.5-billion in assets and is predominately owned by investment giant Power Financial Corp. – is naming the platform Wealthsimple Trade. It’s a mobile app that will provide users access to unlimited zero-commission trades of more than 8,000 publicly traded stocks and ETFs listed on major Canadian and U.S exchanges.
At launch, securities can be bought and sold that are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange, TSX Venture Exchange, Canadian Securities Exchange, New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market.
“The options for stock trading in Canada aren’t great – traditional brokerages have high fees, the technology is dated and clunky, and the experience isn’t exactly user-friendly,” Mike Katchen, chief executive and co-founder of Wealthsimple, said in a statement. “We saw an opportunity to take the simple, human approach we’re known for and apply it to the trading experience.”
The platform is currently in a beta version and will soon be rolled out to users by invitation this month, followed by a wider, public launch later this year. The platform is available on iOS and Android systems and will include market and limit orders and a stock-watch list to monitor stocks without buying.
See: An investor’s guide to robo-advisors 2018
In 2017, 59.9 million trades were executed in the online brokerage channel in Canada and the average commission revenue earned per trade over that time frame was $10.07, according to the Retail Brokerage and Distribution Report by Strategic Insight.
Wealthsimple’s zero price tag for stock trading is a first in Canada and comes at a time when investor advocates have been pushing regulators for heightened fee transparency. The majority of Canada’s existing 15 discount brokerages charges between $6.95 to $9.99 a trade depending on the number of transactions an investor makes a month, while a handful of them offer zero-fee trades for exchange-traded funds. Prior to Wealthsimple Trade, Questrade offered one of the lowest fees on the Street at $4.95 a trade.
Similar to other discount brokerages, there is no minimum account size. Opening an account takes minutes – compared with some traditional platforms that can take over two weeks to process. Once they receive an invitation, current Wealthsimple clients – who now number more than 100,000 – can sign into the new app using their existing log-in.
In addition to letting users execute commission-free trades, the app will educate clients about investing and the risks associated with picking stocks, and encourage responsible investment behaviour.
Robo-advisers – also known as online portfolio managers or digital advisers – provide clients with a recommended investment portfolio predominantly made up of ETFs – all for much lower fees than usually offered by traditional financial advisers. The introduction of a trading platform that shifts away from predetermined portfolios of ETFs doesn’t mean Mr. Katchen believes there is more money to be made in buying and selling of stocks.
See: Fintech Frenzy: Hype or Reality? A Closer Look at 6 Key Sectors
“Our approach to investing hasn’t changed: The smartest way to grow your money long-term is to have a diversified, low-cost portfolio that tracks the market, contribute regularly, and stay the course,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean there’s no place for buying and selling individual stocks – as long as it’s done responsibly as part of a holistic financial plan.”
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association of Canada (NCFA Canada) is a cross-Canada non-profit actively engaged with fintech, alternative finance, blockchain, cryptocurrency, crowdfunding and online investing stakeholders globally. NCFA Canada provides education, research, industry stewardship, services, and networking opportunities to thousands of members and subscribers and works closely with industry, government, academia, community and eco-system partners and affiliates to create a strong and vibrant crowdfunding and fintech industry. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: ncfacanada.org
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Aug 25, 2026 A seed-stage fintech doesn't have the compliance headcount of a bank, but it runs into the same onboarding failure modes on day one. Pick the wrong KYC vendor at this stage and you're locked into a twelve-month contract sized for volume you won't hit until Series B — while real users bounce off a verification flow that takes four minutes and rejects one in five of them. The Contract Problem Nobody Mentions on the Sales Call Most enterprise KYC platforms are priced for banks — five-figure monthly minimums, annual commitments, a sales cycle built around a company that already knows its verification volume two years out. A startup running 400 verifications a month signs the same contract structure as a bank running 400,000. Same paperwork. Wildly different math. That mismatch shows up first on the invoice, then in the engineering hours nobody budgeted for. Pay-per-approved pricing solves half of the problem. The other half is speed to first verification — how long it takes from signed contract to a live SDK in production. A startup's runway doesn't stretch to a six-week integration project, no matter how good the false-rejection rate looks in the sales deck. There's a ...
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