Lightyear: FSA licence 4.1-1/32

Up to a point, and the ceilings are the part worth reading. Client money and instruments are held separately from Lightyear's own funds with authorised custodians, and assets held under the Estonian licence are covered by the Estonian Investor Protection Sectoral Fund up to 20,000 EUR, with a personal account and a business account covered separately. US securities are held with the execution partner Alpaca and protected up to 500,000 USD by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Crypto-assets are excluded from the Estonian fund and from every other EU compensation scheme, and none of this cover applies to investment losses.

Clients of Lightyear U.K. Ltd are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. If the firm failed and client assets were short, FSCS investment protection covers up to 85,000 GBP per person, per firm, for eligible claims. Cash held at Lightyear's UK partner banks falls under FSCS deposit protection instead, which Lightyear would claim on the client's behalf. Cash placed in Qualifying Money Market Funds is not covered by deposit protection, and cash at EU banks falls under the EU deposit guarantee schemes rather than the FSCS.

Personal accounts are open to residents of 26 European markets, including Estonia, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, the Baltic states and the United Kingdom. Business accounts cover the same markets except Bulgaria, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and a personal account has to be opened first. Lightyear does not accept United States tax residents or citizens, and refuses residents or citizens of sanctioned jurisdictions including Russia, Belarus, Iran and North Korea.

Lightyear says most withdrawals are paid out within 2 business days, and in rare cases later, when the money from a recent sale has not yet settled. After the payout, pounds and euros usually arrive the same banking day, and US dollars over SWIFT can take 5 banking days. Lightyear charges nothing for a local withdrawal in euros, pounds or dollars. Money cannot be sent back to a card, so a bank transfer has to be set up before a first withdrawal. A dollar or SWIFT withdrawal is released only to an account in the client's own name once a bank statement has been supplied, and intermediary banks commonly charge on international SWIFT payments even though Lightyear does not.

By bank transfer, or by debit card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, and only from an account or card in the customer's own name. Bank transfers are free: SEPA Instant in euros arrives within minutes, UK Faster Payments within minutes, US ACH in one to two business days, and a local forint transfer inside Hungary in one business day. Card, Apple Pay and Google Pay deposits are instant but cost 0.6 percent and are limited to personal 3D Secure cards issued in the country on the account. Receiving a US dollar wire costs a fixed 6.11 USD on the European service and up to 8.50 USD per payment on the UK service, and euro deposits are not accepted over SWIFT.

Lightyear runs its own platform and does not support MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5 or cTrader. The same account is reached through a web app and through native iOS and Android apps, published on the App Store and Google Play. There is no desktop terminal and no third-party platform option.

More than 6,000 instruments: shares on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, London Stock Exchange shares, shares in companies headquartered in more than 20 European countries, ETFs, exchange traded commodities, money market funds and Baltic bonds, plus a short list of crypto-assets. Fractional shares are available across much of the range, and market, limit, stop and scheduled repeat orders are supported. Lightyear offers no investment advice, so every order is the customer's own decision.

None. There is no margin, no leveraged product and no short selling on the platform, so a position can never be larger than the cash behind it and a customer cannot lose more than the money they put in.

No. Lightyear is an investment platform for stocks, ETFs, exchange traded commodities, money market funds, Baltic bonds and a short list of crypto-assets, all bought with the customer's own cash. Its permissions in Estonia and the United Kingdom cover dealing in securities rather than leveraged foreign exchange or contracts for difference, and its terms state that it is not a currency trading platform.

Lightyear charges a commission per order rather than a dealing spread, with no account fee and no custody fee. On the European service, US shares cost 0.10 percent per order with a 0.10 USD minimum and a 1 USD cap, UK shares 1 GBP, EUR-denominated stocks, bonds, ETNs and ETCs 1 EUR, other European stocks 0.10 percent with local minimums, and Baltic stocks are free for three orders a month then 1 EUR. ETFs carry no execution or custody fee, crypto-asset orders cost 0.45 percent, and currency conversion is 0.35 percent. The United Kingdom accounts are commission-free with a 0.1 percent conversion fee instead.

There is no minimum deposit on a Lightyear investment account, and the business account states no minimum or maximum deposit criteria either. The only figure Lightyear publishes is on its United Kingdom Cash ISA, which can be opened from 1 GBP. Fractional shares mean a single order can be smaller than the price of one share.

The group parent is Lightyear Financial Ltd of London, company number 12925823, which is recorded as the sole shareholder of the Estonian operating company Lightyear Europe AS and is the entity named in the site copyright line. Lightyear states on its own site that it was founded in October 2020 by Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, both early employees of Wise. The United Kingdom service is provided by a third group company, Lightyear U.K. Ltd, company number 14367910.

Nothing on the record points that way. The operating companies are named openly with their licence and company registration numbers, two statutory regulators carry them on their registers, client money and instruments are held separately from company funds with authorised custodians, and the product itself is cash-only investing with no leverage. None of that protects against investment losses, and the compensation ceilings matter more than the fact of regulation.

Yes. Lightyear Europe AS, the company that serves European clients, is authorised as an investment firm by the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority, Finantsinspektsioon, under activity licence 4.1-1/31, and Lightyear U.K. Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under firm reference number 987226. Both authorisations are recorded on those regulators' own registers. Lightyear Europe AS also holds licence 4.1-1/147, an authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider under the EU markets-in-crypto-assets rules, effective 17 November 2025, and licence 4.1-1/32, which since 4 March 2024 extends its investment-firm permissions; both are recorded as active.