Lightyear is a great choice if you want to invest in the Netherlands without wading through pages of Dutch financial jargon or losing money on hidden fees.
Whether you’re an expat trying to navigate investing in the Netherlands or a local who’d rather not pay ridiculous fees on your hard-earned cash, finding the right investment platform can often feel needlessly complicated.
Enter Lightyear: a handy investment app that’ll help you build wealth, without all the migraine-inducing fine print.
Here’s everything to know about growing your finances with Lightyear.
First things first: what’s Lightyear?
Put simply, Lightyear is an investment app that enables you to buy and manage global stocks and funds, without unnecessary barriers or hidden fees.
Whether you’re interested in diversifying your portfolio or you’re simply dipping your toes in investing for the first time, Lightyear offers a range of features to make the process simple and stress-free.
Because, let’s be honest: you shouldn’t feel as though you need a Master’s in Finance or millions in the bank to start in investing.
How Lightyear helps make investing easier in the Netherlands
With an app designed for everyday investors, we’d best describe Lightyear as an all-in-one platform where investing doesn’t feel intimidating
These were the features we found most beneficial, as a team of internationals and Dutchies. 👇
Invest across currencies, with EUR, USD, and GBP all in one account
Thanks to Lightyear’s multi-currency accounts, you can hold savings and investments in EUR, USD, and GBP all in one place.
This was a major pro for us, as being able to hold funds in three currencies helped us avoid unnecessary conversion costs.
In addition to making faster and more efficient transactions across markets, this also means that more of your money is going where it should: towards your actual investments.
Earn money while your cash waits for the perfect investment
If you’re still deciding where to invest your cash, you can park it in one of Lightyear’s Savings Vaults, where it’ll be invested in Money Market Funds from some of the world’s largest asset managers, like BlackRock.
What is a Money Market Fund? This is a type of mutual fund that invests your cash in low-risk, short-term debt securities, like treasury or corporate bonds. With their high liquidity, you can typically withdraw your cash at any time.
For those of us who didn’t want to invest a lot of money upfront (or just couldn’t find the right investment opportunity), these high-yield vaults offered a lot of the pros of traditional savings accounts — just with far higher returns on our money.
However, let op: though these vaults may have “saving” in the title, they’re still an investment platform.
This means that returns aren’t guaranteed, but this is still a savvier option for your cash than letting it sit in a Dutch savings account and earn a few measly euros in interest.
Start small with partial shares (even a little goes a long way!)
If you’ve always wanted to own shares from big-name companies, but can’t afford the market price of a full share, fractional shares are a great alternative.
As their name suggests, fractional shares allow you to buy a fraction of a whole share. You can think of it as the difference between buying a delicious chocolate cake for €300 or a satisfying slice of that cake for €30.
We found it an excellent option for both beginner investors and people who want to diversify their portfolio without breaking the bank.
Enjoy commission-free trading on a diverse range of ETFs
One of our favourite features was Lightyear’s commission-free ETF trading.
What is an ETF? An ETF, or exchange-traded fund, is essentially a bundle of investments. You can have stocks, bonds, and other kinds of assets all in one ETF, and it’s an easy way of diversifying your portfolio without conducting hours of individual research yourself.
While many investment platforms charge fees for buying and selling ETFs, Lightyear says “nee”. This meant that we paid:
- Zero execution fees when investing in ETFs, and
- Zero custody and account fees for holding investments.
Although other minor fees did occasionally crop up, such as conversion fees, these don’t apply if you buy in the same currency. Even better, the lack of platform fees enabled a greater percentage of our funds to go into our investments.
Trade international stocks and ETFs hassle-free from a single app
Forget about juggling multiple investment platforms, because Lightyear gives you access to over 6,000 international stocks and hundreds of ETFs — all from the comfort of their mobile app.
We’re also big fans of the app’s clean and user-friendly interface. From monthly overviews to profits and value fluctuations, keeping an eye on our investments was a stress-free walk in the park.
Get AI-powered insights to make smarter investments
Not sure what’s going on in the stock exchange today? Geen probleem, because Lightyear’s AI-powered market insights condense this wealth of information into bite-sized chunks, making it more accessible to both beginners and busy investment pros.
While the app doesn’t offer tailored investment advice, we liked the option of staying informed while still having the freedom to make our own financial decisions.
Benefit from savvy investment tools
If FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) is one of your long-term goals, Lightyear’s investment tools are a major asset.
What is FIRE? FIRE is a movement centred around strategically saving and investing, so you can retire decades before your country’s traditional retirement age.
From compound interest calculators to in-depth stock comparisons, we found these tools super helpful in creating a solid plan for our financial future.
All in all, we thought Lightyear was solid proof of the fact that investing doesn’t have to be complicated. Whether you’re just building your portfolio or you’ve been in the game for a while, we found the app refreshingly user-friendly and feature-rich.
Have you tried investing with Lightyear? Tell us all about your experiences in the comments below!
Disclaimer: Investing means you can lose some or all of your money. If you are unsure what this means, please speak to a qualified financial adviser.