Trustly’s Done a Trading Report. And, It’s About Time

An enlightening, new report carried out by Swedish fintech, Trustly, sheds some light on the customer experience in the Trading industry.
They surveyed 2700 active traders in six key European markets to find out what the key issues are.

What’s most apparent is that in an environment where time is of the essence – money moves too slowly.
We spoke to Philip Ternhem, Senior Sales Manager for Financial Services at , about the report and where trading platforms can up their game. 
Firstly, tell us a bit about Trustly
Trustly’s online banking payments solution covers a vast array of financial services and brings several key benefits. We enable financial service providers to offer fast payments – much faster than what’s currently offered through manual bank transfer.

And, as this report confirms, timely payments is crucial to offering a good customer experience. Especially in Trading. 
Which markets did you survey and what are the common issues traders face?
Sweden, Finland, Poland, Germany, Spain and the UK are the six markets we covered in this survey.
Traders in all of those regions were unanimous in saying that the speed at which funds settle is a key factor in deciding which platform they trade on.
This is true for both the time it takes for deposits to be credited to their trading accounts, and when it comes to withdrawal settling times. 
What are the main issues for traders surrounding manual bank transfers?
Well, for starters, manual bank transfers leave room for error as traders have to fill in their details manually.
Details like IBAN and reference codes, which is next to impossible to remember off by heart, so mistakes are rampant.
As many as 33% find manual bank transfers a totally inconvenient payment method.
Delays are also commonplace as it takes on average more than a full day for funds to be credited to a trader’s account.
For some, it takes as long as three days, which is forever in trading terms. Traders also have to wait about 29 hours on average for withdrawals to show in their account, which also hampers their abilities. 
Surely, brokers are handling this in some way?
Their support staff is quite busy dealing with these delays which, of course, takes a huge toll on operating costs. Nearly half of the traders we surveyed said they had to contact support.
In countries like Germany and Sweden it’s more than this. So, trading platform business will do well to lessen the load on resources and costs – but more importantly, improve the trading experience on their platform which is important for customer retention. Introducing ‘fast funds’ or instant payments and withdrawals is a great way to achieve this. 
What are traders looking for from brokerage platforms?
Traders want more agility to act swiftly in such a fast-paced environment. Cumbersome payment methods that cause a lot of friction and dissatisfaction simply don’t allow them this.
What they’d like is for their deposited funds to be available much quicker so that they can act on an idea when they have it and not miss out on an opportunity.
Our research also shows that if offered instant deposits and withdrawals, traders would not only show more loyalty to the platform offering this, they’d also add more funds and deposit more.
Which, in turn, would not only help brokers improve their acquisition and strengthen their retention – but also increase revenue. 
Download for a more in-depth look at what fast payments can do for trading platforms. Visit trustly.com.