Freetrade’s future might be best in Lloyds’ stable

IT’s been over two months since I queried the fate of Freetrade, the stock-trading app which appears to have struggled to win over new investors at a hoped-for valuation of £700m in late 2021. At that time, I wrote that talks with JP Morgan, the Wall Street behemoth, were unlikely to result in a transaction – and the absence of news since then seems to corroborate that theory. Other talks with Monzo, the app-based bank, also proved fruitless. So here’s a tip for Adam Dodds, founder of the somewhat-sensitive fintech: engineer a sale to Lloyds Banking

Group instead. Freetrade would provide the kind of innovative consumer interface lacking at the front end of Lloyds’ and other established high street banks’ apps.

For Charlie Nunn, Lloyds’ still relatively new chief executive, it would act as a ready-made solution to the rather clunky share-dealing platform it currently operates. And as Nunn takes the UK’s biggest high street bank deeper into the mass affluent segment that he outlined in his strategy update a year ago, it might be a cheap way to jumpstart its ambitions in the investment area.

Yesterday’s underwhelming results and forward guidance from Lloyds emphasises the need for a spark of inspiration.

One obstacle to a deal (involving Lloyds or any other would-be suitor): how cheap a price are Dodds and his institutional shareholders, which include the listed venture capital investor

Molten Ventures and LVMH-backed private equity firm L Catterton, prepared to accept?

A Freetrade spokesman says there is “no update” on the company’s future. Just as with struggling UK fintechs like Railsr, the embedded finance business which briefly aspired to a sustained unicorn valuation but has now been left scrambling to find a buyer to salvage its future, the absence of concrete news about a takeover frequently bodes ill.

I’ll look forward to Freetrade proving me wrong – whether that’s in tandem with Nunn or an alternative new owner.