It was almost two years ago that National Bank Direct Brokerage became the first Canadian online broker to eliminate commissions for trading stocks and ETFs.
It’s not that Canadian online investors don’t care about fees. In its latest brokerage customer satisfaction ranking, J.D. Power found that high costs and fees are the top reason cited by investors for switching brokers. High fees accounted for 30 per cent of switches, while 17 per cent were tied to products, tools and services and 13 per cent were a result of poor service.
For all this awareness of fees among Canadian investors, they’re not switching to zero-commission brokers in sufficient numbers to upset the pricing status quo. Beyond NBDB and Desjardins, free trades can only be found in trading apps like Wealthsimple, MogoTrade and TD Easy Trade . In all, zero commission trading is just a niche.