Brokerage group Trading 212 has established a new entity in Ireland.
The company was registered in January of this year, with the broker also appointing Michael Byrne as its Chief Executive Officer.
Byrne has worked in financial services for over three decades and has held senior roles at companies, including ICAP and Sun Life Financial.
More recently, he was Chief Operating Financial Officer at ITG, which was acquired by market making firm Virtu Financial in 2019. He was also Chief Financial Officer at Cantor Fitzgerald for two years, in the broker’s Dublin office.
Prior to moving to Trading 212, Byrne was Chief Operating Financial Officer at investment banking firm Numis.
Trading 212 is also hiring for a Chief Risk Officer and Head of Trading for the new Irish entity.
It’s unclear why the company has decided to establish a company in Dublin.
Trading 212 already has entities in Germany and Cyprus, meaning it doesn’t need another license to access European Union clients.
One possibility is that it is part of some kind of corporate restructuring to make the group level tax rate more efficient.
Currently Trading 212’s holding entity is in the UK, where corporate tax rates are 25%. In Ireland it would be half of that amount.
One possibility is that the firm will execute trades in Ireland, meaning it books any P&L in that corporate entity, rather than the UK or Germany.
Trading 212 has seen huge revenue growth over the last decade, after the firm became the first UK broker to embrace the ‘commission free’ equities model.
