Trade Republic has rebuilt the technology behind how it fills customer trades, adding a "best price" execution engine and a new paid order type. The changes landed on Wednesday, two days after the European Union's ban on payment for order flow took full effect for German brokers.The company, which says it has more than 10 million customers and over €150 billion in assets, also launched a browser-based terminal for active investors. It is the firm's first product aimed beyond the mass-market savers who built its business.Co-founder Christian Hecker cast the overhaul as part of the company's broader pitch, calling it "what democratising investing means to us."[#highlighted-links#] Trade Republic reached a €12.5 billion valuation in December, making it Germany's most valuable startup, and it has spent the past year pushing well beyond stock and ETF savings plans.Under the new setup, Trade Republic says its algorithm compares real-time quotes across what it describes as all relevant liquid exchanges and fills an order at the best available price, with the customer paying a €1 settlement fee. Clients who want to pick a specific venue, such as Xetra, Euronext, NYSE or Nasdaq, can now do so through a "Direct Price" order for €2 a trade.The Fee Model Shifts as the PFOF Window ShutsThe timing is hard to separate from the regulation. Germany was the only EU member state to use a temporary carve-out from the bloc's ban on payment for order flow, the practice where a broker routes orders to a market maker in exchange for a rebate.That exemption expired on June 30, which means German brokers can no longer earn money that way. They now have to fund execution some other route, whether through spreads, explicit fees, subscriptions, or by handling the flow in-house.Trade Republic has said the practice made up less than 30% of its revenue, and the broader European neobroker model leaned on it for years. The company's own wording points to the alternative it has chosen. Orders under the new engine are executed against Trade Republic itself, it said, meaning the firm stands on the other side of the trade rather than passing the order straight to an exchange.How Rivals Have Handled the Same SqueezeTrade Republic is not the first to unwind order-flow economics. When the practice drew scrutiny in the United States in 2021, zero-fee broker Public.com dropped it and began routing orders directly to exchanges, turning what had been a revenue line into a cost and asking customers to leave optional tips instead.Europe's neobrokers have found different exits from the same trap. Scalable Capital, Trade Republic's closest German rival, runs a subscription tier at €2.99 a month, a fee that can absorb the lost order-flow income without adding a per-trade charge.The pressure is not only about pricing, it is also about geography. Trade Republic walked into Poland in September 2025, its first market outside the eurozone, arriving with a 4.25% savings rate and a flat trading fee that set off a price war among local brokers.The favor is being returned. XTB, the Warsaw-listed broker that leads the Polish market, is pushing into Germany, and Chief Executive Omar Arnaout has said the firm will spend more on marketing in Germany than in its home market this year. The two are now fighting on each other's turf.A Terminal Aimed at the Traders It Once IgnoredThe Web Terminal marks a clearer break from Trade Republic's origins. The browser platform offers charting, screeners, portfolio analytics and live market data at no extra cost, the company said, and targets active investors rather than the buy-and-hold savers the app was built for.That pushes the firm onto ground held by Interactive Brokers and other platforms built for frequent traders. It also extends a run of expansion that has carried Trade Republic past savings plans, into bonds, crypto, current accounts and private-market funds through tie-ups with Apollo and EQT. Hecker has described that arc as a move from brokerage into wealth management.The company is spending to keep that message in front of consumers, having named Brad Pitt its global brand ambassador in May for the largest marketing campaign in its history. This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.

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