German digital bank Trade Republic has launched operations in Poland last week, marking its first expansion outside the eurozone and setting up a direct challenge to established players like XTB in the country's growing retail investment market.

The move comes when Trade Republic also announced a major expansion into private markets through partnerships with Apollo Global Management and EQT, giving the platform additional competitive firepower as it targets Poland's 38 million consumers.

Trade Republic Enters Poland With 4.25% Savings Rate, Targets Retirement Gap

Trade Republic entered Poland with a savings account offering 4.25% annual interest, matching the Polish central bank's deposit rate, along with a flat trading fee of 4 zlotys per transaction. For comparison, XTB offers 4.1% promotional interest rate and 1.85% standard rate

The newcomer highlighted Poland's severe retirement funding gap, noting only 3% of the population feels confident about having sufficient retirement funds, the lowest level across the entire EU.

“Our mission is to democratize wealth across Europe,” said Christian Hecker, co-founder of Trade Republic. “With our launch in Poland, we demonstrate that we can bring this vision to life also beyond the Eurozone.”

The German fintech provides Polish customers with local IBAN accounts, direct trading in zloty, and access to over 10,000 stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies with no foreign exchange fees. Initially, the Polish stock offering will be limited to the 100 most actively traded domestic shares. Earlier this year, Italian customers received a similar offer, where Trade Republic also wants to bridge the “pension gap.”

While Trade Republic charges a flat commission, which XTB doesn't do up to €100,000, the Polish fintech bills a foreign exchange fee of 0.5%, which can be considered a “hidden” fee when trading outside the local Warsaw Stock Exchange. XTB therefore works out cheaper up to a rather modest amount of 800 zloty, above which Trade Republic may be more cost-effective for retail traders interested in foreign ETFs and stocks.

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Competition Intensifies for XTB

Trade Republic's arrival adds pressure on XTB, which recently overtook mBank to become Poland's largest brokerage by account numbers with nearly 615,000 accounts as of August 2025. The publicly-listed Polish broker has dominated new account acquisitions, capturing 335,000 clients in the last year.

However, Trade Republic brings significant scale with over 10 million customers across 18 European markets and €150 billion in assets under management. The platform has achieved profitability over the past two years and counts Sequoia Capital and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund among its investors.

Kamil Szymański, who previously developed ETF offerings at mBank's brokerage arm, will lead Trade Republic's Polish market development. “Poland is one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe, yet households remain structurally under-invested and face a growing pension gap,” Szymański said in Polish media reports.

Revolut is also breathing down XTB's neck. Although the company isn't included in official statistics on the number of brokerage accounts in Poland due to its Lithuanian registration, 590,000 people in the country currently use the Revolut Invest service, just 25,000 fewer than XTB.

Local Brokers Slash Fees in Response to Competition

The arrival of Trade Republic has intensified an already heated pricing war among Polish brokers, with established players scrambling to match competitive offerings on investment costs.

Just days before Trade Republic's Polish launch, mBank's brokerage arm sparked the fee battle by eliminating commissions on ETF trading within IKE and IKZE retirement accounts through February 28, 2026. The move targeted foreign-listed ETFs, where mBank previously charged 0.29% commission (minimum 14 zlotys) but now only applies a 0.1% foreign exchange fee.

DM BOŚ quickly responded with an identical offer, matching mBank's zero-commission ETF trading on retirement accounts with the same February deadline. “We understand investors' expectations and want to provide attractive investment conditions,” said DM BOŚ representatives, though they expressed concern about the direction of fee competition in Poland's retail investment market.

The fee reductions represent a significant shift from standard Polish brokerage pricing, where ETF commissions typically match stock trading fees around 0.39% of transaction value. Only BM Alior had previously offered zero-commission ETF trading.

Private Markets Access Might Add Differentiation

Trade Republic's expansion into wealth management through its new private markets offering , announced today (Monday), could provide additional competitive advantages in Poland. The platform now allows retail investors to access private equity and private credit funds from Apollo and EQT with minimum investments of just €1, compared to typical institutional minimums of €10,000.

“Long-term wealth creation is more than just an ETF savings plan. It's about the combination of various asset classes,” Hecker explained. The company plans to roll out two additional asset classes over the coming months, each 30 days apart.

The private markets expansion addresses a key limitation in most retail portfolios, which typically focus only on public stocks and ETFs despite private companies representing 88% of the overall economy. Trade Republic offers monthly liquidity through its internal marketplace, versus the quarterly redemptions typical of private market funds.

Polish customers can also access Trade Republic's Visa card with 1% cashback on purchases, deposited directly into investment savings plans. The platform operates as a fully licensed European bank under German financial regulator BaFin supervision, with Polish operations regulated by the country's financial authority KNF.