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Finasta

Temporary note: As of November 2011, Finasta’s parent company Snoras has been nationalised by the Lithuanian authorities amid allegations of fraud and seems likely to be wound up. Finasta says it is operationally and legally separate from Snoras, will continue to operate as usual and is expecting to be sold as a going concern to a new investor. This entry will be updated with more information when the outcome becomes clearer.

Finasta is the investment and brokerage arm of Lithuanian banking group Snoras. Among other services, it offers online stock trading for a large number of markets in Eastern Europe and beyond at relatively low rates in many cases.

We don’t have any experience of using this firm or comments from other feedback yet. It’s included in the directory because it may be of interest to investors looking to invest in this region, alongside firms such as Brokerjet, Orion Securities and Swissquote. If you have any feedback, you can send us an email using the contact form.

In terms of likely investor security, while Lithuania is not a top-tier financial centre, it is a regulated market and Finasta is overseen by Securities Commission. Lithuania is a member of the European Union and has implemented the EU directive on minimum investor compensation standards, which means that the Deposit and Investment Insurance Fund provides protection of up to €20,000.

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Orion Securities

Orion Securities is a reasonably well-known investment bank and stock brokerage in Lithuania. The firm offers online stock trading for the Baltics, plus broker-assisted trading for a large number of other markets – most significantly, it covers much of Eastern Europe and rates on many are reasonably low.

We don’t have any experience of using this firm or comments from other feedback yet. It’s included in the directory because it may be of interest to investors looking to invest in this region, alongside firms such as Brokerjet, Finasta and Swissquote. If you have any feedback, you can send us an email using the contact form.

In terms of likely investor security, while Lithuania is not a top-tier financial centre, it is a regulated market and Orion is overseen by Securities Commission. Lithuania is a member of the European Union and has implemented the EU directive on minimum investor compensation standards, which means that the Deposit and Investment Insurance Fund provides protection of up to €20,000.

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Swissquote

Switzerland’s leading discount brokerage offers a reasonable range of North American and European markets for online trading and a far larger number for broker-assisted trades. As far as I know, it’s the only retail-orientated brokerage in Europe that offers markets such as Brazil or Japan’s Osaka Stock Exchange (as opposed to the more widely traded Tokyo exchange) – although Daniel Stewart, a UK institutional firm that accepts private clients, can also access these and more, while the Hong Kong-based Boom Securities and Phillip Securities are other cheaper alternatives for Japan.

The main drawback is the fees. Minimum commissions on the broker-assisted markets are so high that they are unrealistic for most retail investors. This may be understandable, since they will be traded via intermediaries. However, even the online markets are not cheap – you will do better through many other discount brokers.

However, there is no minimum account size and admin fees don’t look unbearable. So if you’re aiming to make a handful of long-term investments of at least US$5,000-10,000 each in some of the more inaccessible markets it offers, Swissquote could be worth a look. Feedback on everything except fees has generally been good.

The Hong Kong and Singapore stock brokers may be alternatives for Asia, while Brokerjet, Finasta and Orion Securities may be worth considering for Eastern Europe.

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Brokerjet

Run by Austria’s Erste Bank, Brokerjet seems to be the main multimarket account offering online stock broking across several Eastern European countries (Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia) that caters to English-speaking clients.

The firm also offers the smaller German regional exchanges (Berlin-Bremen, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Hanover and Munich), as well as the main Frankfurt exchange and the smaller Stuttgart one. These are not usually provided by stock brokers outside Austria and Germany, although they are probably of limited interest to most investors. Fees seem reasonable compared to what you’ll pay for most Eastern European markets through traditional stock brokers.

The platform doesn’t seem to support multiple currencies in one trading account. So you’ll have to open separate deposits if you want to be able to settle deals in Poland directly in zloty, for example, and these may carry inactivity charges. But the currency conversion charge is a fairly low 0.25% if you don’t want to go to trouble of opening multiple currency accounts for settling the occasional trade in smaller markets.

I don’t have any direct user feedback, but found customer service was extremely fast and helpful when approaching them with questions about the account. Alternatives could be the Lithuanian firms Finasta and Orion Securities or the more costly Swissquote.

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Charles Schwab One Account

This US online brokerage giant now has two international brokerage services: The Schwab Global Account, open to US citizens and residents only, and the international trading part of its long-standing Schwab One Account. The firm has never really advertised the latter much, but it can deal in a very wide range of overseas markets, albeit by telephone during US hours only.

Schwab One Accounts are available to clients outside the US, although the minimum account size will be larger – US$25,000 for most markets, US$10,000 through the Hong Kong and UK arms. Overseas dealing is likely to have a minimum of around US$5,000 per trade for some markets.

The main snag with the service is cost. International dealing rates are 0.75% with a minimum of US$100. While this is lower than rates at the wirehouses, you can do better than that for many of the markets it offers – within the US, try Interactive Brokers, Fidelity or Schwab’s own US resident-only Schwab Global Account. On top of this, its correspondent stock brokers in the overseas markets will add their own charges, include FX conversion (since you can only hold US dollars within the account). That will vary by market, but it’s likely to add 0.15-1.5% depending on region (Europe will be cheaper, emerging Asia more expensive).

That said, while nobody I know well has used Charles Schwab for buying international shares, second-hand feedback says the customer service is very good. Certainly, I was impressed with the knowledge of its representatives when I enquired about opening an account. At this price, I’d still say look for a cheaper broker for the easy markets. But perhaps consider this firm for the more exotic ones if you trade in reasonable size and the US$100 minimum is bearable.

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Saxo Bank (Saxo Markets)

Founded in Denmark in the early 1990s, Saxo Bank now offers services to investors around the world and is one of two truly global operators (the other being Interactive Brokers). The name can cause some confusion – this is a brokerage and investment bank rather than a traditional retail bank. For this reason, it is now known as Saxo Markets in some countries.

The firm offers more countries for online trading than any other firm in the broker database. Trading commissions are mostly reasonable, but fees vary greatly depending on which country your account is opened in, so check your local version of the Saxo website to clarify these. The exact markets available may also be different, due to regulatory restrictions.

The commission on currency conversions also varies, but has unfortunately now risen to 1% in some countries (it was previously 0.5%). Investors trading in and out of stocks in the same foreign currency frequently will therefore want to keep the proceeds in cash rather than transferring back to their base currency.

You can operate multiple foreign currency sub-accounts to let you do this, but these need to be set up individually for each currency you require. In some countries, there may be a minimum account size to open sub-accounts.