Smartbroker Holding AG substantiates plans for the relaunch of its Next Generation Broker

• Smartbroker Group enters into cooperation with Baader Bank
• Current pricing and large selection of exchanges remain unchanged
• Low-fee trading of more than 20 cryptocurrencies & additional securities account classes (business, junior and joint custody accounts) to be added soon
• Increase in long-term profitability and reduction of risk profile through expansion of revenue sources

Berlin, 5 December 2022

Under the project name "Smartbroker 2.0", the Smartbroker Group is working on the relaunch of its next generation broker. The parent company, Smartbroker Holding AG (formerly wallstreet:online AG, ISIN: DE000A2GS609, FSE: SB1), now announces further details about the implementation plan and designates a new partner bank: the securities and cash settlement accounts will be managed by Baader Bank, based near Munich, which will also take over several transaction execution and backend functions. A cooperation agreement to this effect was concluded today.

Project is fully financed

The partnership combines the Smartbroker app and the revamped desktop trading interface, which are currently under development by the Group’s in-house teams, with Baader’s securities processing capabilities that have been established and time-tested for many years. On the operational side, the Smartbroker Group will be responsible for providing and maintaining the front ends, the securities account application process, and the ongoing customer support. In addition, the company will provide key parts of the middleware for Smartbroker 2.0, including customer authentication, order preparation, billing and all technical pre-trade stepsahead of the transaction execution. Smartbroker AG’s existing BaFin (Federal Financial Supervisory Authority) license already covers these activities.

In order to complete the development work, management plans to make further investments of approximately €5 million. This compares to a gross cash balance of over €28 million at the end of September 2022. The entire "Smartbroker 2.0" project is thus more than adequately financed.

Addressing additional target groups

The relaunch’s go-live is planned for mid-2023. It offers the opportunity to build on the existing growth strategy and the successes of 2020 and 2021. Following the scheduled reduction in marketing spend for 2022, the Group intends to ramp up new customer acquisitions again thereafter. The migration of existing Smartbroker customers to the new infrastructure is to begin shortly after the product launch. A corresponding termination and migration agreement has been signed with the previous partner bank.

Smartbroker customers will benefit from low-cost access to more than 20 cryptocurrencies following the relaunch. These include Bitcoin, Ripple and Ether, among others. In addition, the company will gradually expand its target group in several respects - by offering business, junior and joint accounts, and the launch of the trading app.

Smartbroker retains its unique selling proposition as a next generation broker

Smartbroker's unique selling proposition will remain unchanged. The unique combination of extremely favourable conditions typical for neo brokers with the broad selection of trading venues and investable products usually only offered by established banks and classic brokers will be retained. Accordingly, Smartbroker will continue to offer trading in equities, funds, ETFs and bonds from €0^[1]. Derivatives are also free of charge in direct trading via the premium partners Morgan Stanley, HSBC, UBS and Vontobel[2]. Customers can choose between all German stock exchanges and 25 foreign trading venues and have access to more than 650 ETFs eligible for savings plans, to which contributions can be made at low cost and to a large extent even free of charge.

Smartbroker has received several awards for this offering, most recently from Handelsblatt^[3] and Euro[4], among others, and has been ranked by Finanztest^[5] as the most cost-effective provider by a wide margin.

Improved product to be launched in mid-2023

The cooperation with Baader Bank will enable Smartbroker 2.0 to launch in mid-2023, while at the same time reducing the platform’s ongoing operational risk, as a large proportion of the back-end functions will be performed by a single partner. Smartbroker 2.0 creates the basis for higher revenue per trade and new revenue streams, for example through the introduction of crypto currency trading. It is expected that these revenues will make a significant earnings contribution soon after the migration of the existing customer base and will hence contribute to improving the risk profile of the Smartbroker Group. According to current plans, Smartbroker will reach operating profit break-even after customer acquisition costs in 2024. The marketing costs for a planned growth of 75,000 new customers p.a. are already included in this calculation.

André Kolbinger, founder and CEO of Smartbroker Holding AG: "The cooperation with Baader Bank enables us to launch Smartbroker 2.0 as planned by mid-2023 and to focus on our core competencies in the ongoing operation of our platform: product design and development, customer support and new customer acquisition. In the future, we will have significantly more flexibility with regard to IT, design, and customer communication. The new setup gives us additional control and decision-making power – enabling us, in due course, to also integrate our media offerings. As such, we are addressing key factors that have been restricting our growth opportunities until now. I am very pleased that we are once again moving into the fast lane and will soon be able to present our customers with a noticeably improved Smartbroker."

Oliver Riedel, Board Member at Baader Bank AG: "We are very much looking forward to working with Smartbroker, the multiple award-winning online broker. The relaunch will create an optimized user experience that will allow customers to use a variety of new features and products. For Baader Bank, the cooperation with Smartbroker is an additional gain, creating an additional offering in terms of products and markets and which also further advances our own growth rate."

About the Smartbroker Group

The Smartbroker Group operates the Smartbroker – a multiple award-winning online broker, which is the only provider in Germany to combine the extensive product range of traditional brokers with the extremely favourable conditions of neo brokers. In addition, the Group operates four high-reach stock market portals (wallstreet-online.de, boersenNews.de, FinanzNachrichten.de and ARIVA.de). With several hundred million monthly page impressions, the Group is the by far largest publisher-independent financial portal operator in German-speaking countries, and also hosts the region’s largest finance community.

About Baader Bank

Baader Bank is one of the leading European partners for investment and banking services. 
Trading and banking are combined using a single powerful platform that offers a unique setup and optimum access to the capital market using a secure, automated and scalable approach. As a family-run, full-service bank headquartered in Unterschleissheim near Munich with around 500 employees, it is active in the business lines of Market Making, Capital Markets, Brokerage, Fund Services, Account Services and Research Services. 

Press contact:

Felix Rentzsch
Head of Communications
Phone: +49 (0)176 4165 0721
Mail: f.rentzsch@smartbroker-holding.de

Investor Relations contact:

Sabrina Kassmannhuber
Head of Investor Relations
Phone: +49 (0)30 20 456 500
Mail: ir@smartbroker-holding.de

^[1] in each case plus customary spreads and charges

^[2] in each case plus customary spreads and charges

^[3] Handelsblatt on 2 May 2022, „These are the best online brokers”

^[4] Euro, issue 5/2021, page 108-115: "Best Bank 2021"

^[5] Finanztest, issue 12/2021, pages 24-33: "The best securities account for you"