eToro, the leading online investment platform, has acquired UK-based e-money platform Marq Millions and is preparing the launch of its first debit card. Once Marq Millions rebrands as eToro Money, it will act as the issuer for eToro’s forthcoming debit card as it looks to expand its product range among UK customers. eToro also has a membership arrangement with Visa and EMI license from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.
Yoni Assia, co-founder and CEO of eToro, said: “The launch of a debit card is a natural next step for eToro as we broaden the range of services that we provide to our users. eToro has always been about opening up finance.”
eToro was born in 2007 and started as an online sharedealing service but has since expanded into wealth management, offering a number of investment products and funds on its platform. Its mission: to make trading accessible to anyone, anywhere, and reduce dependency on traditional financial institutions.
The first iteration of eToro was an online trading platform that makes trading easy to understand, and even fun, using graphic representations for various financial instruments. Quickly, the firm launched an intuitive trading platform, enabling anyone, anywhere to trade financial assets online. WebTrader included professional tools for both beginner and advanced traders. Then, eToro launched one of the first social trading platform, OpenBook. It enabled anyone in the world to join the Fintech revolution by copying other successful traders using the innovative CopyTrader feature. The platform attracted global attention, winning Finovate Europe Best of Show for 2011.
eToro then started innovating within the mobile sphere, with the launch of the OpenBook and WebTrader apps, both in iOS and Android. The trading platform soon decided to expand its offering to stock trading, enabling traders to diversify their portfolios even further and by investing in the global stock market.
The platform now integrates both WebTrader’s online trading capabilities and OpenBook’s social trading features into one intuitive and innovative interface and has introduced CopyPortfolios, which are managed portfolios that bundle Top Traders or various assets under a predetermined market strategy.
The debit card, eToro’s future feature, will offer users an instant cash-out and cash-in functionality, will initially be available to eToro customers in the UK and Europe before being extended to non-eToro users.
