Brokerage group Trading 212 announced on Monday that it has started accepting clients via its German-regulated entity.

Trading 212 acquired German brokerage group FXFlat in August of last year, having seemingly been in the process of setting up a local entity on its own.

The company’s office is in Dusseldorf and the firm is hiring for a number of risk and compliance roles there.

It’s unclear why the company decided to go ahead with this set up, given that – in theory – they could just passport across the European Union with either their Bulgarian or Cyprus-regulated entities.

The most likely factor is simply branding and having the local regulator on side, particularly as the company looks to onboard clients for investment products, not just CFDs. Up until now clients in Germany were onboarding with the broker’s Cypriot entity.

In a statement, Trading 212 said that existing German clients will have to close their account and then open a new one in order to transfer over to the local entity. The company added that they are developing a system to make this process smoother.

The company also said that clients signing up with the German entity will not be able to access Trading 212’s debit card and payments offering. The broker said it is working on adding this feature for its German entity by Spring.