(let me know if this is not the right sub Reddit)

Hi everyone,

I want to invest and I’m curious what most people here actually use.

Do you invest through your bank (BNP Paribas Fortis, KBC/Bolero, ING, etc.) or do you use online brokers like DEGIRO or Trade Republic?

Trade Republic seems extremely popular, but I’ve also seen quite a few posts/comments about people temporarily not being able to access their money or accounts. That honestly worries me a bit.

So I’m wondering: Which broker do you personally use and why? Do you trust online brokers long term? What really happens if an online broker goes bankrupt or disappears? With a traditional bank, that can’t just disappear overnight, right?

Interested to hear real experiences from Belgians here. Thanks!

  • Re=bel

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    Rebel from Belfius is pretty awesome. I once sent the development team from the app an email with suggestions about changes they can do to the app to make it better and more attractive to investors.

    The next day I got a call from one of the devs, he thanked me and said I could call him back anytime if I had an idea.

    Example, now you can see daily return per stock/etf, even if the market is already closed for the day. A couple months ago it would have said €0,00 if markets were already closed. That was one of the things I suggested and it actually got implemented. Let's say you check your investments in the evening, at 8PM, because Europe was closed, you would not see the return for your European stocks. Now you do.

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  • I've started using Bolero recently as I'm a happy KBC customer and it seems to be good enough for what I want to do as not interested in crypto, etc.

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    kbc customer here for 20 years. expensive bank but they gave a VERY low mortgage rate and customer service is 10/10. I tried bolero since the AI hype and made 35% profit on just nvda alone.

    super easy app btw and i didn't knew anything about stocks before.

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  • None yet, I should probably look for one tho.  

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  • Depends on experience level.  I use Degiro for simple etf´s and investing in stocks.  If you want more complicated products IBKR has a great app and desktop client but has a bit of steeper learning curve

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    IBKR doesn't operate in BE, Belgian tax authorities don't like that kind of thing and might start asking questions

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    Same as Degiro

    Personally I prefer Belgian regulated accounts like Saxo, MeDirect

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    Indeed, I've been with KeyTrade since 2014 and just stick with them, despite their very basic trading features

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    You can perfectly open and operate an ibkr account as a Belgian citizen living in Belgium. It's just more manual work.

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    Mexem does Belgian taxes and is whitelabeled IBKR

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  • I use Bolero, has gotten better over the years and is easy to use. Money can be instantly exchanged with your bank account etc. But powerfeatures are lacking imo. Good for easy mom and pop investing, not for the real stock exchange nerds.

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    I also feel like Bolero forces you to hold stocks/etfs for x amount of time. If you sell within 6-12 months you pay x amount extra for some reason which kinda sucks

    Also has higher costs if you invest smaller amounts

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    That's just not true. Whay do you mean with paying extra when selling in 6 months? They have fixed fees, it doesn't matter when you sell.

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  • I use Trade Republic to automatically invest every week into an etf (saving plans). Recurring buy like this (weekly, 2weekly, monthly) has no transaction costs.
    I also use their card for purchases (1% cashback) and all the cash that is on the account you get 2% interest on (paid monthly), this is way nicer than having a "zichtrekening" and a "spaarrekening". But keep in mind they don't handle taxes. So you need to handle the TOB and 30% tax on the interest of the cash!
    I also have a referral for 30 euro worth of shares when making an account and starting investing whith this link: https://refnocode.trade.re/3mqzcw4d

    For individual purchases of a share I use saxo.

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  • Revolut for basic stock investments. I like the simplicity.

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    What about commissions?

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    What about taxes? Dividend? Tob?

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  • I use Degiro since Covid , alot of people I know use Bolero but don’t have positive comments about that. Saxo is pushed by alot of influencers so they probably get money or a percentage to promote it which makes me question their credibility .

    Never let the bank do it for you, always manage it yourself.

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  • Keytrade. Rates where relatively reasonable for a belgian broker, and since i was already a customer at their bank it was also convenient for me.

    Not sure if i still would do it now though. A lot has changed since then. Its worked out for me mostly, its not a bad broker, They have peetty much everything available. Not having to worry about the taxes yourself is also very nice. But they have not kept their prices up-to-date with the competition that well the last few years.

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  • I’m dabling with investing via ING. They have a nice enough app.

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  • I use Bolero and find it really easy to use, but for the future, I may start using Saxo because it seems sensible to not have all eggs in one basket in case of cyber attacks, etc.

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