For fintech Trade Republic, one of Germany’s most valuable start-ups, Europe’s moves to open up private assets to non-professional investors amount to nothing less than the “true democratisation” of finance.
The question is whether the push to unleash billions of euros of ordinary investors’ savings has come just in time, or whether it has instead arrived at a moment of danger for investors struggling to work out what such assets are really worth and how easily they can be turned back into cash.
“So many players are getting involved in the distribution of these products for the first time,” says Steffen Pauls, founder and co-chief executive of Moonfare, a platform that offers private market products to professional investors. “There is a risk of mis-selling.”