You know very well how important it is to consciously invest your money but, not being particularly knowledgeable in this area, you are a bit scared by the classic trading platforms of banks, which are often too complex and cumbersome to use and do not offer enough products. on which to invest. You are also afraid of facing too high costs and an unsatisfactory assistance service, unable to help you in case of need. What to say? You are very well worried, but you must know that today there are realities that allow you to invest in a smart, safe and simple way, conveniently from the Web or smartphone app, guaranteeing all the support and variety of options you might need. An example? Scalable Capital .
Scalable Capital is a Munich-based fintech founded in 2014 by former Goldman Sachs executives with the aim of democratizing the world of finance and offering its clients a safe, simple and convenient way to invest their money, starting with 1 euro alone , and consciously determine your financial future. To date, with over € 10 billion in custody funds , 600,000 clients and investors of the caliber of Blackrock (the largest investment company in the world) and Tencent (one of the largest tech companies in the world), it is one of the investment platforms most popular and complete in Europe. It allows you to choose from more than 7,000 shares, with the possibility of creating savings plans starting from 1 euro with zero commissions (fractional securities are also available); to invest in over 1,700 ETFs (funds that replicate the performance of stock, bond or commodity indices), ideal for diversifying investments and keeping costs low; it then allows you to securely sell and buy crypto (eg Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana) without a wallet (on a regulated exchange such as shares and ETFs) with investments starting from 1 euro; finally, it offers the possibility of investing in over 2,000 mutual fundswithout entry fees and with the possibility of creating savings plans without commissions, always starting from 1 euro. All this is conveniently accessible from the web or app for iOS and Android smartphones .
Finally, to highlight the customer support of Scalable available in Italian and reachable directly via chat or e-mail, where to answer the questions there are human operators and not bots as it happens with other brokers. Interesting, right? Then read on and discover with me how Scalable Capital works : you will find everything explained in detail below.
Index
- Scalable Capital Accounts and Pricing
- Scalable Capital Security
- How to open a Scalable Capital account
- How to invest with Scalable Capital
- Storage area
- Savings plans
- Crypto
- For more information
Scalable Capital Accounts and Pricing
Before explaining how to open your account and start investing with Scalable Capital , I recommend that you take a look at the available plans and their costs .
- FREE Broker– has no fixed monthly or annual costs. It provides fees of 0.99 euros for each operation performed. It allows you to trade all ETFs of PRIME partners DWS Xtrackers, Invesco and iShares without commissions for orders equal to or greater than 250 euros. Savings plans (PACs) for ETFs, stocks and cryptocurrencies are commission free. Crypto ETPs have a 0.99% surcharge (spread) for transactions and savings plans. Orders via the Xetra exchange have a fee of € 3.99 per trade and a trading venue fee (0.01% of the order volume, minimum € 1.50).
- PRIME Broker– costs 2.99 euros / month with annual billing, 3 months free trial and possibility of cancellation at any time (from the menu “Profile> Scalable Capital account details”). It includes all the advantages of the FREE plan plus unlimited operations on the Munich stock exchange (gettex) without commissions or order costs for orders with a value greater than 250 euros. Transactions with a value of less than 250 euros, on the other hand, have order costs of 0.99 euros. Crypto ETPs have a spread of 0.69% for transactions and savings plans.
- PRIME Broker Flex– has all the features of the PRIME Broker plan, but with a cost of 4.99 euros / month with monthly billing and the possibility of canceling at any time (from the “Profile> Scalable Capital account details” menu).
For more details, visit the official website of Scalable Capital , where you will find a comparative table of all the available plans.
Scalable Capital Security
When it comes to investing your money, it is essential to check the reliability and degree of security offered by the broker you are addressing. In this regard, you must know that with Scalable there are all the guarantees necessary to operate with maximum security.
First of all, it must be said that Scalable Capital is based in Germany , regulated by BaFIN and authorized by CONSOB in Italy: this is very important because many foreign brokers are regulated in Cyprus by CySEC, which has been assessed inadequate by ESMA. They also offer deposit protection that stops at € 20,000, against that of € 100,000 ensured by the German and Italian systems used by Scalable Capital.
Another very important thing to underline is that by signing up to Scalable Capital you will not simply be a user of an online platform: you will open a real bank account for the securities deposit in your name with 100% segregated securities . This means that uninvested deposited money is protected by the German protection system up to € 100,000 and that in the event of bankruptcy you do not have to go through lengthy bankruptcy procedures to get it back.
It should also be noted that, unlike many other brokers, Scalable does not lend its clients’ securities to third parties and does not operate in CFDs . If you do not know, CFDs ( Contract For Difference ) are derivative products through which when a customer buys a security, in reality, he does not really buy the stock but a derivative offered by the broker that follows the price: this means that if the CFD broker fails, the invested money is lost (paradoxically, even if the investments are positive). With Scalable Capital, on the other hand, you actually own the purchased securities . More info here .
Obviously, two-factor authentication is also supported , in order to make your account theft-proof and associate a security code with the classic access password. Access to the app is super secure but also convenient thanks to the support for biometric unlocking systems (e.g. face or fingerprint recognition).
How to open a Scalable Capital account
The procedure for opening an account on Scalable Capital is quick and easy. You just need to be of legal age and have a valid ID on hand.
You can do everything in a few minutes both from the site and from the app for Android and iPhone : the steps to be taken are always the same (I used the app for the tutorial anyway).
After pressing the subscription button , you must enter your email address and confirm . You will then receive an email containing a confirmation button to press to start the actual subscription.
After pressing the button to start , you are therefore invited to choose the plan that best suits your needs: FREE Broker (free), PRIME Broker (2.99 euros / month with annual billing and 3-month free trial) or PRIME Broker Flex (€ 4.99 / month with monthly billing). Once the choice of the plan has been made, it is necessary to indicate how you want to be appealed by choosing a gender (Mr. or Mrs. ) and a title (Dr., Prof. or neither).
After this step, you must enter your name and surname , indicate if you are married and enter your date of birth along with city and country . You must then indicate your nationality , your residential address and your mobile number .
Going forward, you are asked to enter the country in which you reside for tax purposes, your tax code and, if different from your residence, also your tax residence .
The next step is to indicate the IBAN of your current account: this is the account that will then be used for deposits and withdrawals from Scalable Capital (therefore a SEPA direct debit mandate will be issued). Once the account has been entered, you must indicate if you prefer, for the first deposit , the transfer by bank transfer or direct debit .
A summary of all the data entered is therefore shown, to be carefully checked. By confirming, you are invited to choose a password to use to access your account and to accept the terms and conditions for opening it.
At the end of this phase, we move on to that of identification and signature . It is therefore necessary to check the boxes relating to the acceptance of terms and conditions and contractual proposals and press the button to start identification , which involves providing a valid identity document and taking a selfie.
After clicking on Start , you must then indicate the issuing country of your identity document and specify what type of document it is (passport, identity card or paper identity card). With the ID card, by pressing the Start document photo button you must then follow the instructions on the screen to take two photos of the front and two photos of the back of the document (one photo on a flat surface and one photo with the document tilted, following the template shown on the screen).
Then you have to confirm – and eventually complete – the form with the details of the photographed document (number, expiration date, etc.), so you have to take a selfie by following the instructions on the screen.
Finally, you must accept the localization by Scalable Capital and wait for the actual opening of the account , which usually takes place within a few hours but which can take up to two working days. Once the account has been opened, a communication will be sent via email. More info here .
How to invest with Scalable Capital
Once the account is activated, you can make your first deposit and start investing with Scalable Capital by choosing from the many products available. Here is all explained in detail.
Storage area
To make the deposit, all you have to do is press the Transfer button on the main screen of Scalable Capital and choose the option to deposit .
It is then necessary to indicate if you prefer to manually make a transfer from the account indicated during registration (in this case there is no minimum deposit and the coordinates to carry out the operation are shown; the credit takes place in 1-2 working days) or if you want to take advantage of the direct debit always from the bank account associated with Scalable Capital (in this case, however, the minimum deposit is 100 euros and the credit takes place in 2-4 working days).
The procedure for making a withdrawal is just as simple: after pressing the Transfer button , choose Withdraw , you must indicate the amount to be withdrawn and confirm . The funds will be credited to the bank account linked to Scalable Capital indicated during registration within 2 working days.
Savings plans
Once the credit has been received, you can start making investments starting from 1 euro . As widely emphasized, everything is extremely simple and intuitive: in the main screen of Scalable Capital you can find at a glance the value of the portfolio and the performance of the securities in your savings plans, the list of available crypto , the watchlist with the securities ( to be able to arrange alphabetically or according to performance) and the list of the latest transactions. Then there is the menu to quickly access the Crypto , Find and Profile sections .
To invest in stocks and create a savings plan , you need to go to the Find section of Scalable Capital and search for a security among the many available: you can perform a direct search by filtering the results between stocks , crypto , funds and ETFs or browse the most popular ETFs in categories such as global markets , emerging markets , US markets , future technologies and the top 10 savings plans .
Once you have selected a stock , you can see its complete profile with the performances in the last period and all the main data concerning it. The discovery engine then displays another ten 10 interesting titles based on recent investments from other clients and the most popular titles. By pressing the bell icon you can set a price alert and be notified if a certain price threshold is reached, while by pressing the star icon you can add / remove the stock from your watchlist.
To set up a savings plan, press the Set Now button and follow the quick wizard on the screen: after indicating the amount you prefer to invest (starting from 1 euro), you must indicate the frequency of the savings plan; the execution date (the day of the month to execute the plan); then you must choose whether or not to activate the inflation protection (to automatically adapt the amount of the plan to inflation), you must indicate the deposit method you prefer between direct debit (in this case the withdrawal takes place 3-4 working days before date of execution) or withdrawal fromCash balance of the Scalable account (if the balance is not sufficient, the deposit is automatically withdrawn via SEPA debit) and that’s it.
As already mentioned, it is then possible to monitor the performance of the securities in your portfolio in the appropriate section of the Scalable Capital home. In case of second thoughts, to cancel a savings plan just select it and then press the relative button (below). More info here .
Crypto
Investing in cryptocurrencies with Scalable Capital is just as simple and, above all, safe. On Scalable Capital, in fact, it is possible to invest in Crypto ETP ( Crypto Exchange-Traded Products ), i.e. listed and regulated instruments that follow the value of an underlying cryptocurrency.
Furthermore, all ETPs available on Scalable Capital are physically secured : this means that the issuer deposits the equivalent value of the investment in the corresponding cryptocurrency with a regulated custodian. Then there are no risks of hacker attacks or scams typical of crypto exchanges and you don’t have to worry about having your own crypto wallet to keep and manage. Finally, the taxation is transparent and defined (with Crypto ETPs the losses and capital gains can be offset with other investments).
That said, investing in Crypto ETPs is a breeze with Scalable. Going to the Crypto section you can find a list of the main electronic currencies, with the possibility of arranging them in alphabetical order, by performance or by capitalization. Alternatively, by going to the Find section, you can perform a direct search by selecting the Crypto option to narrow the results to cryptocurrencies only.
Once you have found a crypto choice, just as seen before for the securities, you can view all its details, set up a price alert and set up a savings plan starting from 1 euro by pressing a simple button. The steps to be taken are always the same (with the necessary differences in terms of costs ). More info here .
For more information
If you need more information on Scalable Capital, I invite you to visit the official website . In particular, I advise you to consult the FAQ page , where you can find the answers to all the most frequently asked questions about the functioning of the service.
And if you need direct support, I remind you that the Scalable Capital staff is available via email and chat in Italian to answer any questions. In the app you can find the Support section in the Profile tab .
Please note: the information in this post is for educational and informational purposes only. Therefore, they do not represent investment advice, personal suggestions or an invitation to buy and sell financial instruments.
