Bitpanda is a company based in Germany, and that brought a very innovative take to investing. Indeed, they started as a simple cryptocurrency exchange but rapidly started to expand into other financial instruments, like stocks and ETFs.

They offer that by using derivatives - meaning you don't invest directly in a stock or an ETF, but in a derivative that represents the underlying assets. This innovative way of investing allows some really neat features, as we'll discover later in this review.

They are growing really rapidly as well, being founded in 2014 and now having over 3.5 million users worldwide and over 700 employees.

They also offer some really cool features that we'll talk more in details later in this article, like being able to invest in fractions of stocks, having a 24/7 stock market, and also offering a dedicated card and a mobile app.

On instruments that I am really interested in, like stocks and ETFs, there are zero commissions on buying or selling - which is really something great compared to other online brokers.

On cryptocurrencies, you have a fee of 0.1% on buying/selling, which is pretty standard and comparable to other large exchanges.

Note that there are also no fees whatsoever to keep your account open on Bitpanda.

As I mentioned earlier, Bitpanda started as a regular cryptocurrency exchange, and you still today expect all you would from a basic exchange in the field. It's really easy to find details about a given cryptocurrency, and you can just invest in one click:

Note that you can also have cryptocurrencies in savings plans, which I will talk about more later in the article.

Where it gets really interesting is when they introduced the ability to invest in stocks and ETFs directly from the Bitpanda platform. As I mentioned before, you actually invest in derivatives that represents the underlying assets. In terms of the experience for the investor however, it's exactly like you would invest on any online broker, which a nice browser to filter through stocks:

Once you selected a stock you interested in, you can simply click on it to have more details:

Then, you can also invest in this particular stock or ETF in just one click. 

Where it gets really interesting is that you can invest in fractions of a share. Let's take the Microsoft example above for example: you can invest just 1 Euro in it, and you don't have to buy one full share at 243 Euros. This means it's much easier to diversify your portfolio, especially as beginner, compared to other stock brokers.

The use of derivatives also allows to invest in stocks 24/7, like you would do with cryptocurrencies. Overall, I really like the fact that Bitpanda brings a really fresh take on stocks investing.

Bitpanda recently also introduced investment in commodities, which is also something nice to have on the platform and that really shows they want to become an all-in-one tool for online investing. You can therefore invest in things like oil, energy, or gold - right from the same Bitpanda account.

Bitpanda also allows you to order a physical debit card that is then attached to your account. While there are many similar offers with cryptocurrency exchanges out there, it's the first time I saw a card that also allows you to spend directly the money you have invested in stocks for example, thanks to the use of derivatives. I personally like to keep my investments in stocks for example separate from my spendings, but in case you want to have it all within one account it's nice to see that there is this feature here.

Finally, for people that want to automatically invest at regular intervals, they also have savings plans, meaning it will automatically invest for you in assets you select at given interval of time. It's not something I would personally do or even recommend, but in case you want to have a fully hands-off approach, the feature is there.

First, Bitpanda is a fully regulated platform, as it's a MiFid II investment firm, as well as PSD2 payment institution, meaning it was audited and has the highest standards in the EU regarding the protection of the investors funds.

They are also fully compliant with AML5 (anti money laundering), and have all the funds safely kept in offline wallets, as it's a general practice on crypto exchanges.

Here, you just need to fill a simple form:

Once your account is created, you still have the identify verification to go through, but on Bitpanda this process is fully automated and was done with the mobile app in my case, and took me less than 5 minutes.

Then, when the process is completed you can actually start depositing money on Bitpanda. What I really appreciated here is that you can do that via the usual bank account but also using your credit card (and even Apple/Google Pay in the mobile apps). This allows you to invest & try the platform instantly, which I think is something really cool to have.

Note that you can deposit a minimum of 25 Euros, which is really low and nice to see as other brokers still sometimes requires you to deposit over 1000 Euros or even more. 

Once you have the money on your account, you can start investing right away, and even in the stock market as it's available 24/7 on Bitpanda as I mentioned earlier.

As we saw in the article, Bitpanda is a great platform with an excellent reputation, it is fully regulated, and is really easy to use with a lot of different assets you can invest in.

So at the end of the day, is Bitpanda a great platform to invest in digital assets? I would say that it greatly depends on what are your investments goals. If you are solely interested in investing in cryptocurrencies, there might be better options out there with more choices and also with lower fees. 

For stocks and ETFs however, I think that Bitpanda brings a really fresh take on the field with fractional shares investing and also the possibility to invest 24/7. So if you are looking for a good platform that does it all and also that is really easy to use and safe, Bitpanda is definitely a good choice.