Is This The Best FREE Bank Account in Europe? (3% Interest & 1% 'Cashback')

In this episode, we make the case for Trade Republic being the best bank account in Europe — then try our hardest to poke holes in it.

What we cover:

• Why it's not Revolut or Wise — and why we keep recommending Trade Republic instead
• The full ECB deposit rate passed straight to you (recently bumped to 2.25%)
• The 3% promotional rate for new customers — and who's locked out of it
• How "Saveback" actually works, and the savings-plan catch attached to it
• Fee-free spending and ATM withdrawals worldwide (plus the one €100 gotcha)
• How it stacks up against Revolut and Trading 212 on fees, limits and support
• The customer service meltdown they fixed with 1,000+ agents and a 24/7 phone line
• The reliability wobbles during volatile markets — and who they actually matter for
• The big question: can a fee structure this generous really last?

Using Trade Republic? Tell us what you actually think. Join our new Discord to chat directly with Jan and Jonny — link below. 

Join the new Banking Without Borders Discord community 

https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/discord

Check out our website DepositScout.com for the latest savings rates. 

Connect with us (via LinkedIn)

Jan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-watermann/

Jonny: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonny-pease

Got a question or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message at jonny@technicallymoney.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, welcome back to another episode of Banking Without Borders. So today we're going to look at an account that we believe might just be the best bank account in Europe. It's not Revolute, it's not WISE. In fact, it's Trade Republic. And Jan, you've been recommending this account for a long time. So why do you think it's so good?

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Johnny, it's an excellent bank account with a market-leading interest rate, debit card that's almost free to use anywhere in the world. You're getting some sort of cash back as well, and you get access to cheap investing. So it literally ticks all boxes if you think about a uh you know what a good bank account needs to offer, and that's why I recommend them so much. Um might be worth mentioning that they've initially started as a brokerage platform. Banking business basically is just a side feature they've launched in 2000 2023, I believe, where they become became licensed as a bank. And um, it's obviously a way to bring people into the door. I mean, that's that's that's sure we know that for a fact. It's uh it's a clever strategy because they want people to use their investment products, but you know, it doesn't change the fact that their bank account is just extremely good. And that's also one of the reasons why these guys have 10 million customers now available in 18 countries and hold about 150 euros worth in customer assets. 150 billion. Impressive. 150 billion euros in customer assets. It's impressive.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

It is impressive, it is impressive. We've seen this playbook from the likes of Trading 212, haven't we? Where they offer this really compelling travel card, for example, or this compelling rewards card where you can earn 1.5% cash back. And that is ultimately to get you in the you know in the door of trading 212. And Trade Republic are doing the same thing as Jan just mentioned, but what is their equivalent, Jan, to the trading 212 1.5% cashback?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

They have something that they call safe back, which is similar, similar concept. They offer 1% of save back on whatever you spend. There's a cap of 15 euros per month, so you can only earn safe back on up to 1,500 euros worth of spending every single month. What I dislike a little bit is the fact that you have to commit at least 50 euros into a savings plan within Trade Republic in order to take advantage of this, and then whatever save back you generate would be invested into that say uh that that savings plan. So it's nothing like uh it's it's not an unconditional cashback, and I guess that's why they have probably uh you know legal reasons to call it a safe back instead. But it's still a decent side feature, right? It's it's a nice thing, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

It it is, it is, but I would ask the question: what if you're not interested in investing? Does that take away from this being the best bank account in Europe? Does the bank account deteriorate in terms of quality?

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Maybe slightly, but it's still very, very compelling. What's worth mentioning are the interest rates, which really stand out of this account. Um, and you still get them even if you choose not to invest any money on their platform. What they do is they provide a full ECB deposit rate, and they're probably one of very few, if not the only bank that does that. And as an example, that rate was upped last week from 2 to 2.25% June 2026, and Trade Republic immediately followed and um also offered 2.25% to the customers. That's excellent, Johnny. Not just good, that's excellent. Um, what else do you want? Um, I mean, you're literally getting what the central bank provides to them, right? Everything else would be a promotional rate, which they're also offering at the moment um for new customers as a as a marketing expense, I assume. Excluded our German customers. So if you're in Germany looking to open up an account, you cannot take advantage of these 3% of interest um the Trade Republic offers as a promotional rate. But everywhere else, um to my understanding, you can, and that's literally insane. 3% within the Eurozone, absolutely unheard of. Um, I don't think you can get that on a current account anywhere else. Is that limited to a certain threshold? There's no max account limit. At least I couldn't find one on the website, literally researched that um because I was also asking myself the same thing. Umly information I found on that was that the interest accrues daily and is paid out monthly, and there's also no minimum deposit required, but they do not mention any sort of maximum account balance.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Okay, so interest rates are great, but what about spending internationally? Are there fees on transactions in a foreign currency?

SPEAKER_01 4:05

No, they're not. They offer visas exchange rate, no fixed fee attached to that, there's no no fair usage limit like you would have with Revolute, for example. You can literally use your card and spend abroad all over the world essentially without any fees. And I also like the fact that they offer free ATM withdrawals, um, also without any any sort of limit. The only thing you have to keep in mind is that if you want to withdraw less than 100 euros, there's a one euro fee. You know, just withdraw 100 euros and then you're fine. You're not paying any fee, and that's excellent. Might be worth mentioning that you cannot do any cash deposits if that's something you're after. Um, I know it's a bit niche nowadays, but um, some people might might want to deposit cash with Trade Republic. That's currently not possible. So you would have to have a different account that you deposit the cash in and then transfer it to Trade Republic.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

One thing I would ask the question then, how are they generating money? Where are they charging fees, Jan? Because we've got no fees on the bank account maintenance. We've got no fees on card spending, we've got no fees on ATM withdrawals, which is incredible. Well, where do they make money?

SPEAKER_01 5:06

I'd say with investing. They offer stocks in ETF trades at a rate of one euro per trade and rely on something or used to rely on something that was called uh a payment for order flow business model, where they essentially um instead of sending your stock order to a traditional stock exchange, um, they used to route that to a market maker and they received a commission in order for doing that. That's not ideal, as you can imagine, because having a um a wide selection of stock exchanges where you can trade uh your stocks from um is yeah, arguably better than having one specific market maker that does this for you, because you'll you'll probably get a better, yeah, uh a lower spread on whatever trade you're planning to make. Is that a big issue for customers? Oh, probably, probably it wasn't ever a huge issue. I can't think of one at least. But I mean it could could create potential conflict of interest. And I believe that's why this has been banned in the European Union. Um I believe starting June 2026, that's when the end of June 2026, that's when the ban is going to take place. So Trade Republic really had to restructure the whole business model, you know, depending on how successful that will be, we might see price increases on their the normal banking products afterwards. I don't know. Uh time will tell, I guess, Johnny.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Okay, so customers aren't really exposed to fees when they're interacting with the banking product. However, if they choose to use trading Trade Republic's an investment platform, then you might encounter more fees, unless you know, we're drawing from an ATM for less than 100 euros. Something's got to give, hasn't it? There has to be some issue here because they're obviously working on quite a uh lean business model. So what's the support like, Jan? Is is that any good? I'm assuming that's AI or something cheap. Yeah, the support has been criticized in the past, Johnny.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Support has been criticized in the past. In fact, it was a huge issue. If you have a quick look at Trustpilot, you'll see that their reviews aren't as good as they could be, right? And that was due to a fact, uh, due to the fact that they started switching their support model to an AI-based model, I believe a few months ago, if not a year ago, and then users started complaining about it because it didn't work. Um, they couldn't get things resolved, they couldn't couldn't get anyone to help with them with the issues. So they actually that actually backfired and they had to employ over a thousand real human agents, I think earlier this year, and also establish a 24-7 phone line that you can just call. Um it's been resolved, I assume, at least that's what it appears to me. Um, you know, having real human agents in there, having someone to call. Nowadays, that's actually rare. So I don't think that issue exists anymore. But it's I mean, it's a common common issue that uh fintechs struggle with. We know for a fact that customer service scales um linear, right? Well, their business models might uh scale exponentially, and that can yeah, will always cause issues in any fast-growing fintech.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

It's it's it's impressive though that they responded to the critique and they improved the service. And having a 24-7 support telephone line, not 24-7 in-app support, actual telephone support for a bank in any world, in any country, I should say, in any world now, is good, right? I think that's really quite impressive because we've come to kind of accept poor customer service with banking products.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Let's use this as an opportunity to segue into a comparison quickly and look at how Trade Republic compares to the likes of Revolu and Trading 212. And first on a support note, you know, Revolute will give you access to phone support, but you'll need premium, metal, and ultra trading two-on-two. They don't have a phone line. Uh you know, I d I doubt it anyway. Um, maybe if you looked up like their FCA authorization details, they'd have to put a telephone number on there, but I don't think they're going to publicly disclose a telephone number for support. So that's already really quite good. In my eyes, looking at this, Trade Republic does seem superior, right? Revolut's standard account is free, Trade Republic is free, but the standard account from Revolut is seriously limited. You know, you get £200 or Euros of fee-free ATM withdrawals a month. Trade Republic are giving you unlimited. Trading 212, you get 400 euros of ATM withdrawals per month. It's really quite impressive, isn't it? Because if anything, that trading 212 card is probably one of the most outstanding cards in Europe. But if you're content to get 1% save back versus trading 2-on-2's 1.5% cash back, which I don't even think is now available to new users, there isn't really an argument here, is there, for Revolut or Trading 2-1-2. I I don't see it. Curious for people to get in the comments, particularly if you have experience with these providers in general. But looking at this, Trade Republic seems to be the better option than both Revolute or Trading 212.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

That's also my perception, Johnny. I think trading 212 comes closest, but um there are a few differences that make Trade Republic just stand out, in my opinion. Also, uh considering the fact they're licensed German bank and trading 212 is not, um, so they have probably a little bit more credibility. Yes. Um and yes, good point. Yeah, in my opinion, it's it's not crystal clear that comparison, Trade Republic to Trading 212, but I would prefer Trade Republic just because it's an actual bank account, a real bank account that you can also receive fund uh transfers with from from external sources. Um you don't have to fund it yourself, and it's yeah, it's more usable in general. But it doesn't change the fact that trading 212 also provides a really good card. Uh, we've discussed that in the past.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

We've talked a lot about the benefits here, but I don't think we've necessarily touched on drawbacks. The payment for order flow structure may have arguably been a drawback a year ago, but that's now being unwound. Customer service, Jan, was arguably a drawback, but now that's being unwounded. ITFC. Yeah, exactly. So we cannot say that this is 100% perfect. Are you aware of any other problems with trade republic?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

But it used to uh it used to actually get quite a bit of media exposure for reliability issues, especially during volatile market periods. If Trump said something or, you know, whatever something else happened for us started, um then typically stocks went into one direction and people started selling or buying. And that's when uh demand was highest, and that's when their infrastructure unfortunately failed a few times. And if you think of uh people that are trying to trade, right, that are looking for these kind of signals and then um expecting to make a decision based on that, you know, they might have lost money in the process. I don't think it's that big of an issue for me personally, at least it wouldn't be. I'm someone who literally invests money and then forgets about it, just has the um the wealth grow slowly in their uh portfolio.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

So it's less ideal for active traders or people who are seeking out more advanced trading deals. Sorry, tools. Yeah, probably. Not deals. Probably. Um but who's it ripe for?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

I think the average show. Most people actually uh could benefit from having this account just because of the fact that it offers low fees on almost everything, right? I can't I mean there's nothing that Trade Republic offers that is expensive at all. Right? If you think of investing, very, very cheap. ATM withdrawals, free, or like super cheap if you withdraw less than 100 euros. Using your card anywhere in the world, free. Um, what else, Johnny? What else? Savings plans if you want to invest money um on a regular basis, that's also free. We haven't even mentioned that. Might be worth bringing this up.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Also, just to chime in quickly, and I can't believe you haven't mentioned this one yet, Jan. But the mirror card that you get with this account, it's 50 euros, but you're always saying how how nice it is. I think that's worth a mention here. That's pretty unique for the industry. You won't find a provider that has a card like this. Regardless of what you think about physical cards, you know, this account comes with a free virtual card, so you don't have to get the 50 euro one. And of course they have a cheaper one, which is just 5 euros. And yeah, you might not care about physical cards, but I think if you did, then the steel slash sort of mirror finished card that Trade Republic has would um would appeal to you.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

The app is pretty good. That's also worth mentioning. Okay. What else?

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Oh, God, is it I was gonna say, people that are using Trade Republic right now and watching this, listening to this, please, please get in the comments, get in touch with us, reach out to us on Discord as well. We just launched a community over there. I'll pop a QR code on the screen. I'll put a link in the description box in the episode notes. So you can use Discord if you want to speak directly with Jan and I and join the community, become a founding member. Let us know if you're using Trade Republic. You know, we'd like to hear what you like about it, if you do like stuff about it, but I'm also, Jan, desperate to hear something bad. I'm always skeptical, mate, when I when everything seems right, you know? Everything seems too good to be true here, but I guess I'm maybe too cynical for my own good because it is possible that something is just genuinely really good. And I think once in a while you stumble across those products that are genuinely good. The only concern with me for Trade Republic, and let me know what you think, is that the generosity of their low-fee structure will have to surely come to an end at some point, right? We saw it with Revolut, we've seen it somewhat with WISE. You know, fees have increased, things are changing, things are getting more expensive. So could we see that maybe in the future with Trade Republic? More people use it, they have greater compute costs, they'll have shareholders who want to recuperate investments. I don't know if this will last forever because it's fabulously free. And also, Brad Pitt is just all over their advertising, which has got to cost money.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Who's paying for that? It's a good point, Johnny. It's a good point. Definitely in a hyper-growth phase right now. I guess um acquiring new customers is more important than earning a large profit per customer, but it can change in the future. So my recommendation to everyone interested in opening up an account is literally keeping an eye on the fee structure, making sure that this doesn't change, and if it changes, they're aware of it so they don't pay any any fees they might not want to pay. And besides that, I think everything has been said today. This is an excellent bank account, I highly recommend, and you probably recommend to Johnny. And I'd be curious what everyone has to say. And yeah, it's been a pleasure, as always, and we'll see each other in the next episode.