Hey guys, it's sasha today, i'm going to show you a brand new investing app in the uk called lightyear. This app has literally just turned up, and if you live in uk, you might be very very interested, because this app is completely free to use which makes them cheaper than every other investing app, because they are the only app that is completely free to use for Buying things like us stocks, but there are a few caveats, everyone else, all the other apps charge you something either they charge your transaction fees or foreign exchange fees or account fees or whatever light year at the moment, is completely free. So let me tell you a little bit more about it just before i do this video is not paid or sponsored, or anything like that. I came across this app when it was still in development without being contacted by them, and i signed up to be on the waiting list.

Since then, i have reached out and been in touch with lightyear and they have promised to give people signing up through my link, some kind of a special perk that you can't get by going direct as i'm recording this video, i have no idea what that perk. What a bonus actually is, i'm sorry you'll, probably get some kind of an introductory bonus. They are working the details out, but i'm going to put the details in the description below also, i have just launched my community and you can sign up through clicking, join on youtube or through patreon link in the description channel members get access to the discord. Member.

Only weekly videos, information that doesn't make it into videos behind the scenes, stuff target prices, my models, unique discounts and a whole lot more by the way. Thank you so much to everyone who has already signed up in the last few days. I really really appreciate it and for anyone who wants to join, i will see you guys in the discord all right. Let's talk about light year, the app has a few very unique features.

You can keep money in the app in three different currencies in pounds, euros or dollars, and i want to start there, because this is really important. You can exchange money between those different currencies whenever you want to completely for free and i'll show you the process of how it works in a minute - and this is amazing, because until now, interactive brokers was the only platform that doesn't charge stupid fees. That lets you keep money in different currencies, all the other ones kind of don't let you presumably with most of them, because they charge you. Those foreign exchange fees for every transaction.

Lightyear is brand new and was created by the people who originally brought about transferwise. Now called wise and these guys seem to be serious. They have brought in a large experienced team. They are not building this in some kind of weird offshore place and they are building a product that looks really great so far, but they are very early on.

They have a selection of over a thousand investing options at the moment, which is good. It includes lots of popular stocks from different stock markets. I've seen ones from the us uk, there's probably other ones. You can buy all kinds of different things that you might be interested in, but if you're looking at some less popular stocks, maybe some smaller ones or some markets they don't currently have you probably won't find them because there's only just over a thousand rather than whatever Everyone else has they also don't currently have any funds or index trackers, and you also cannot get an isa plus there's also some limitations on options available for trading.

So you can only currently do market orders. You can't do any other kind of orders. You can't trade. Anything other than shares - i am guessing all of these things, will change, improve and be added to over time, but that is what it is right now.

The amazing thing is that the app is completely free to use, and i i keep saying it because, because it is amazing, because we haven't had this for about a year, you can invest for free, which makes them cheaper than everybody else, and they know it. They go and show it to you at the top of their pricing page showing you how they are cheaper than the likes of trading 202 free trade and the rest. In fact, at the moment they only have one kind of fee that they could charge you. If you want to exchange more than 3 thousand pounds per month, you'll have to pay 0.35 for an exchange fee.

But if you're not a bowler and you're, not putting in more than 3 000 pounds a month, then it will indeed be 100 free all right. So let me show you how the application process works. It is really really simple. Just remember that i am doing this very soon after light year, first launched in the uk, so the chances are the process might look a little bit different if you're doing this.

A few months after i post this video or later first up use my link in the description to sign up so that you get that perk or bonus or whatever it is from light year. You'll come to a page where you have to type in your mobile phone number, and once you type it in you get a text that you can go and uh down use to download the app once you've downloaded the app. The first question will again ask you for your phone number, so make sure you put the same one so that they can go and match them to give you that perk you'll get a quick text message with a verification number straight after and after that is really Pretty straightforward: first, you do the basics, name, email and date of birth. After that you set up face id or whatever security your device uses and you need to then add your address and the national insurance number.

The national insurance number is there. For a few reasons, you need it and not be able to get access to the 15 withholding tax on us dividends instead of the regular 30, and it also lets light year, provide any legally mandated information to uk tax authorities and if they ever launch an isa. You'll also have the choice of using that product too. All right, you then have to tell them where your money is coming from.

I'm guessing most people here are going to take the salary box, but you can also take any others depending on your specific situation and for me because i did take the salary box. I also get asked who my employers and how much i earn. Then there's a different question on how much you have in investable assets, basically how much you have in cash or cash equivalents. Things like cash in your bank, account savings accounts or other investing apps.

With all of these questions, answer them honestly and truthfully say what you actually have say: what your situation actually is, because these are regulatory mandated questions. Don't try to gain the system they're there, for your benefit to ensure that the product in the future will be right for you at the moment. It probably doesn't even really matter just be honest and upfront, that's what this is there for and then there's a quick bit on regulatory disclosures to confirm that you don't live in the u.s, you don't own more than 10 of any public company, etc, etc. All right next up is the bit where you review the terms and conditions and all the other paperwork.

Now the top here, there's a box that says tap here to check all boxes, and i recommend that you do not do that. I actually think this is not a good thing to have and i hope that they remove this option from this page in the future. I recommend that you actually go and read the paperwork properly, one by one, so that you understand exactly what you are signing up for before you go and tick each of the individual boxes. Next to the thing that you've just read all right a few seconds later after i've done all of that after i read through ticked the boxes and got through my account was ready to go now.

I was one of the very first 2 000 people, as i mentioned, on the wait list for the app. So i got a 14 welcome bonus that you see over here and you'll probably get something kind of similar to that. Okay, once you're done, there are four different places you can navigate in the app the three tabs at the bottom and the menu at the top right. The menu is pretty self-explanatory.

This is where you can look at all the legal documents you can get all the settings get some help all that kind of stuff, but everything else is in these three tabs at the bottom. The first tab on the left is a sort of home screen. You can see a ticker of popular indices at the top, and you can also see look up some of the stocks if you go and click on the search bar or click on the ones you've recently viewed after you invest your money. You'll also see news updates about stocks here and at the bottom.

You can go and click on the different categories if you want to browse through different themes, to find just ideas for stock options. The second tab is the portfolio tab. It shows you how much you have in cash and investments and the graph. It doesn't look great when you first start it doesn't look any better after you make the first investment, but i'm guessing.

This all begins. Looking a lot better and a lot more useful after you've had the account for a while, and the last screen is the account information screen. You can see your balances in different currencies, deposit and withdraw money, convert between different currencies and see all of your recent transactions, and this screen is actually great. It is much better than many of the other options that offer similar screen.

So i'm very happy with this one. I think this this one looks really good okay, so the first step is to deposit money. You can do that on the last tab or by clicking the reminder in the first tab or by going through the menu there's a few different ways, but the process is pretty easy. You select how much you want to deposit and it goes through true layer.

The same third party that pretty much everybody else now tends to use it's not immediate, though i can't see exactly how long it took. I don't know exactly how long it took to arrive, but it definitely wasn't there a few minutes later, but it was there after. I checked about an hour after making the deposit, so that's roughly the sort of timeline that it took and once the money is in you can go and invest it. I wanted to invest in u.s stocks, so the first step i did was to convert my pounds into us dollars because you need those us dollars to buy u.s stocks.

The process is really simple. I click convert and it gave me a price. You can really tell the people who set up wise are behind this, because i immediately went and checked the live exchange rate on google and i was getting a slightly better rate on the lightear app. So it's definitely looking very good on that, and the exchange process definitely looks like there's no fees of any kind baked in.

So the one downside was that when i converted my pounds into dollars, the app left 4p, in my account for seemingly no apparent reason. I can't convert it into dollars because the minimum is one dollar and it's really not a big deal. It's 4p, but i kind of wish i got another three cents worth of investing money instead of it sitting there i'm guessing this bit will probably be fixed. A few days after i post this video, so so, let's see okay, once i got my dollars, it is now time to invest at the moment.

Lightyear only allows you to make market trades, so you can only buy and sell at whatever. The price happens to be on the market when you're doing it, you can see that limit orders and stop orders are on the way, but not ready yet so the chances are by the time you get this app, maybe they're going to be there. So let me show you how buying shares works in two different ways. First, let's buy one whole share of fiverr.

To do that, i just go to the home screen and type in the ticket ticker fvr. Then i go and click on the buy button at the bottom and after i select market order, you can then either decide to invest in dollars at the top or a number of shares down here at the bottom. So i clicked on the shares and i typed in one then i hit go and it went right through the transaction was really fast. I immediately saw everything updating the app so all good here, and this seemed actually better and faster than many of the other apps that i use a lot faster than some of them.

So then, let's go and buy a some tesla stock, because this will show you a different way. This will show you investing with dollars rather than shares, and also we'll show you how fractional shares work. I actually don't have enough money here to buy a whole share. So let's go buy some fractional shares and i just had to just go and put the rest of the money that i deposited into tesla and that got me about 0.13 of a share and it used up all of my money down to the last cent.

So at least i didn't leave any decimal points here and that's it. You can see all the transactions here in the app very, very neat. I love how the screen looks. It is very intuitive, very easy to follow.

There's no fees. So, that's why you can't see them in here. It's just showing me the transactions as i made them, and you can click on the individual transactions. If you want to get more details, so the initial impressions of lightyear are great.

Lightyear have just become the only completely free investing app in the uk for retail investors. With the caveats i mentioned, the app is slick and looks really good. There are a few limitations on the app at the moment. You can only place market orders, there's only a relatively small pool of potential investment options.

You can't open an isa and you can't invest in any funds or index funds, or anything like that, and some of the bits of the app look a little bit basic right. Now, but i'm guessing these will fill out over time. Also, you can only use the app on your phone or your mobile device. You can't use it on desktop.

There is no version there. I actually also asked like the about this pricing thing because you know being free. I wanted to understand what their strategy was, because we already saw one app that we all know start out as being completely free before doing a massive bait and switch on their customers and starting to charge everyone fees after they got their first million customers in lightyear, Told me after i asked them the question that their plan is to offer a freemium type model, so you can already see on the platform that they charge that 0.35 fee. If you want to convert more than 3 000 pounds a month so for people converting less than that, it is completely free, but the freemium thing is: if you want to do more, then you start to have to pay and for most basic investors.

That, probably is not an issue, but just just remember that if you use this app to invest for some time, you may well build up a portfolio worth a lot more than 3 000 pounds over that period of time and there. If you come to a point where you need to go and liquidate and sell in a short period of time within a month, maybe all in one go, let's say: you're buying a house for example, then you will need to pay that 0.35 fee to that point. To get your money back out now, lightyear have said to me when i asked a question that they want to offer the core product in the most transparent and clear way possible, which they at the moment are definitely doing. You know it is completely free and it is very, very simple, but they also plan to offer additional premium features over time that they will then charge.

For i don't know exactly what these features will be, so i'm not going to cover them here. I do hope that they follow the same path as stake or some other apps, and offer additional paid features on top of the core investing account, rather than doing what trading 212 did and basically take basing features that were free and make customers pay for them. Instead, if you want to get that free bonus or perk, whatever it's going to be make sure you use my link in the description and it'll tell you what that perk is going to be down there to set up the account and i'm also going to get A small commission, if you do that, so thank you so much in advance. If you found this video useful, please don't forget to smash the like button for the youtube algorithm.

Thank you so much for watching. I really really appreciate it and, as always i'll see you guys later, you.