Interactive Brokers Offers BlackRock ETFs in Savings Plans
Interactive Brokers Group Inc. is offering exchange-traded funds from BlackRock Inc. in savings plans in Europe, the latest platform to provide the booming product that’s become increasingly popular with mom-and-pop investors on the continent.
Clients of Interactive Brokers in markets across Europe will now have access to more than 500 iShares ETFs spanning bond, equity, and sector strategies and they won’t pay a trading commission, according to a statement Tuesday.
Savings plans let retail investors put regular, small sums into the product, often as little as €1 ($1.15). Retail investors in Germany have been particularly drawn to such vehicles through widely used brokers including Trade Republic and BlackRock-backed Scalable Capital.
“I don’t see things that grow at 40% anywhere in asset management, and the number of savings plans is growing at 40% from last year to this year,” said Timo Toenges, head of BlackRock’s digital wealth business in the EMEA region. He added that ETF savings plans are actually a “transfer of innovation from Europe to the US.”
The move by Interactive Brokers, which typically attracts active retail traders, is aimed at making its product offering more “robust,” said Kevin Keller, chief executive officer of Interactive Brokers Ireland.
Retail investors have flocked to the Greenwich, Connecticut-based firm as it has built out its financial-services products in recent years. Following the success of its prediction markets trading services around the 2024 US presidential election, the firm expanded them into Canada last year. It’s also bolstered its cryptocurrency offerings by adding more tokens to the investing platform.
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