You have probably heard about the Robinhood app on YouTube and want to know whether it is available in Thailand, right?
Robinhood is a modern, easy-to-use investment app from the US that popularised the concept of commission-free trading in financial products such as stocks and ETFs.
Want to know whether Robinhood is available in Thailand, what its expansion plans are, and which alternatives are available for Thai users? We have got you covered!
What is Robinhood?
Robinhood was founded in 2013. Since then, it has played a major role in disrupting the brokerage industry by allowing US retail investors to trade with no commissions, alongside its biggest rival, Webull. Robinhood is a commission-free online broker that lets you trade stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies.
The results are clear: over 27 million funded customers! Robinhood’s competitors have been monitoring this rapid growth closely, and in October 2019, several well-established US brokers – E*TRADE, TD Ameritrade, and Charles Schwab – announced in quick succession that they were scrapping trading fees.
Is Robinhood available in Thailand?
Unfortunately, Robinhood is not yet available in Thailand. It is currently available in the US, the UK, and Europe.
Robinhood has set out ambitious international goals, particularly around crypto. It eventually launched in the UK in early 2024, offering commission-free US stock trading, and rolled out crypto across the EU through its Lithuanian licence. (An earlier 2022 plan to acquire Ziglu, a London-based crypto app, was called off in late 2022, but the company pressed ahead with its own international rollout.)
But do not lose hope! In the meantime, you can still find some Robinhood Thailand alternatives that have proven reliable – perhaps even more so than Robinhood. The covid-19 stock crash in the first quarter of 2020 exposed some vulnerabilities in the Robinhood platform: the app went down several times, and investors could not trade during some of the most volatile markets in history. The company faced several lawsuits over those outages.
Robinhood has also faced security incidents that exposed sensitive client information, and at one point it even allowed “infinite leverage,” which was quickly corrected – though not before some clients suffered significant losses.
Best Robinhood alternatives in Thailand
To help us answer this question, we focused on low-cost online brokers available in Thailand. Given that, here are our suggestions:
Interactive Brokers
Founded in 1978 and publicly listed on the NASDAQ (ticker: IBKR), Interactive Brokers is a global online broker that has weathered major financial crises, showing resilience and a rigorous risk-management process.
Interactive Brokers offers an advanced investment platform spanning a wide range of products (stocks, options, mutual funds, ETFs, futures, bonds, and currencies) across more than 150 markets, solid trade execution (IB SmartRouting), and a set of technical and fundamental tools to support your investment decisions. It is available to clients in Thailand.
Beginners and intermediate investors have educational tools to explore, but the learning curve can be steep, which is why we mainly recommend it to more advanced traders. Customer service also gives clear answers to your questions, so there is no need to go back and forth.
On the downside, Interactive Brokers’ fee structure is quite complex, the registration process is lengthy but fully online, and the broker does not offer commission-free trading. However, when you factor in its low FX fees, narrower spreads, and stock-lending programme, Interactive Brokers’ clients still enjoy significant savings compared with most brokers.
Interactive Brokers also launched IBKR GlobalTrader, a modern mobile trading app for stocks, options, and ETFs, ideal for beginner investors. Some of its features include automatic currency conversions, fractional shares, and a demo account.
Want to know more about Interactive Brokers? Check our Interactive Brokers review.
Which platform should you choose?
Some factors to weigh when choosing an online broker include the fees charged, whether it is regulated by top-tier institutions, and the range of products it lets you trade (not all platforms allow you to trade every market), among others.
The best online broker for you will depend on your profile, preferences, and objectives. Explore the platforms above and decide for yourself!
A reminder that the above should not be seen as investment advice and should be considered information only. Investors should do their own research and due diligence regarding the services and opportunities best suited to their risk, return, and impact strategy.
Hope we helped. Happy investing!
FAQs
How exactly does Robinhood make money?
The online broker earns money from interest earned on customers’ cash balances (money in your account not invested), by selling order information to third parties (high-frequency traders, for instance), and margin lending.
Regarding the selling of orders, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is still investigating Robinhoodfor not fully disclosing its practice of selling clients’ orders to high-speed trading firms.
Until October 2018, Robinhood would not clearly state that it was receiving payments for order flows. By law, any financial company must reveal all the material facts an investor would want to know before making any investment decision.
