Directa SIM

Directa prices orders on the Italian markets (Euronext Milan, Euronext Growth Milan, MIV, ETFplus and GEM) through three profiles that the client chooses and can switch between:

The commission doubles for orders above EUR 500,000. Which profile fits is a matter of arithmetic: at 1.9 per mille, Variabile is cheaper than the flat EUR 5 for orders below about EUR 2,630, and its EUR 18 cap only applies above about EUR 9,470. Semplice suits orders above about EUR 2,630; smaller orders are cheaper in Variabile. Dinamico only beats Semplice in total from the eighth order on the same day, and its price per order is EUR 3 from the 6th order, EUR 2 from the 26th and EUR 1.50 only from the 51st.

Outside Italy there is one price for all three profiles: 0.025% with a EUR 9.50 minimum on Xetra and Cboe Europe, 0.03% with a CHF 20 minimum on SIX, and a flat USD 9 per order on NYSE, Nasdaq and AMEX (USD 15 on OTC, doubled above USD 500,000). ETFs on Euronext Paris and Amsterdam follow the Italian ladder. Certificates on SEDEX and EuroTLX cost EUR 6 in Semplice (EUR 9 down to EUR 2.50 in Dinamico, or 1.9 per mille with a EUR 2 minimum), bonds on MOT and EuroTLX EUR 5 in Semplice, and options on IDEM and Eurex EUR 2.50 per contract. Futures run from EUR 2 per micro contract to EUR 6 for the FTSE MIB and FDAX; CME E-mini contracts cost USD 6.

Directa also keeps a list of zero-commission instruments: purchases of more than 900 ETFs and of selected certificates are free of commission, but the list shows a threshold per product, so check the individual instrument before relying on it. The figures come from Directa's fee annex in force since 01.02.2025 and its commission pages, checked on 02.11.2026.

The standing cost of the account is low. Directa's account conditions list EUR 0 for opening and closing, monthly or annual fees, custody and administration of securities, cash transfers, outgoing securities transfers, the in-house platforms and market access. Directa also absorbs the stamp duty on cash (the imposta di bollo that Italian banks pass on for average balances above EUR 5,000); the stamp duty on securities, 0.2% a year under current Italian law, is charged as the law requires, as is the Italian financial transaction tax.

On currency conversion Directa's own documents disagree. Its website and help pages state that it charges neither a commission nor a spread on EUR/USD conversion: a US order is settled in euros at the LMAX EUR/USD rate taken at 22:00 and applied by 23:00 the same day, identical for buying and selling. There is no need to hold a dollar account, although the contract provides for optional multicurrency sub-accounts. Directa's contract (Art. 32) instead describes a real-time rate 'differenziato tra acquisto e vendita' without further fees, so we record no markup figure.

The smaller charges are worth knowing before they appear on a statement:

• SMS: EUR 0.10 per message for execution and login messages and for OTP codes sent by SMS; notifications via Telegram are free
• Forced close-out of a margined position by Directa: EUR 10 per instrument
• FATCA handling for US persons: EUR 20 a month
• Real-time data for private clients: EUR 0 for Borsa Italiana, NYSE, Nasdaq, AMEX, LMAX CFDs and CME currency futures; EUR 2 a month for EuroTLX; EUR 10 a month for Xetra shares (EUR 30 with the book); EUR 7.50 a month for Eurex futures and USD 3 for CME futures outside currencies
• Financing of long positions held overnight: the ECB marginal lending facility rate plus 5%
• US class actions: 20% of any net amount recovered, nothing if the claim yields nothing

There is no interest on cash: the account conditions say so plainly ("Interessi su liquidità: no"). Accounts opened through a partner bank follow that bank's conditions instead.

Directa Società di Intermediazione Mobiliare S.p.A. is an Italian investment firm, not a bank. According to its pre-contract information it is entered as no. 59 in CONSOB's register of SIMs (delibera 11761 of 22.12.1998), was first authorised in 1995, and is supervised by CONSOB and Banca d'Italia. We could not confirm the register entry ourselves: CONSOB's public SIM register could not be opened from our side on 02.11.2026.

Three layers protect client assets, and they differ in kind:

• Segregation. Client cash sits in a third-party account (conto terzi) at banks, and client securities form assets separate from Directa's own. Under art. 22 of the TUF, Directa's creditors cannot reach them. Directa says it does not trade on its own account and that, in a failure, securities would be transferred to another custodian of the client's choice.
• Fondo Nazionale di Garanzia. Directa declares membership of the Italian investor compensation scheme, which pays up to EUR 20,000 per investor when an intermediary enters compulsory liquidation and client claims remain unmet. That is a fifth of the EUR 100,000 a bank deposit guarantee would cover.
• Partner-bank accounts. In an indirect account the cash stays at the partner bank and, according to Directa, falls under a bank deposit guarantee of up to EUR 100,000 per depositor: the Fondo Interbancario di Tutela dei Depositi, or for cooperative banks (BCC) the Fondo di Garanzia dei Depositanti del Credito Cooperativo.

Directa's shares are listed on Euronext Growth Milan under the code D (ISIN IT0001463063), its accounts are audited by KPMG, and the half-year report to 30.06.2026 shows 166,261 active accounts, almost EUR 11.5 billion of client assets and a net profit of EUR 7.3 million.

The regulatory record is why the safety score is 3.6 and not higher. After inspections that ended in June 2024, CONSOB opened two sanction procedures in 2024: one over EMIR, SFTR, MiFIR and MAR reporting with EUR 300,000 proposed, of which Directa settled EUR 60,000 by reduced payment and contested the rest, and one over client classification, appropriateness and product governance with EUR 65,000 proposed. Directa's 2025 half-year report shows the provision for sanctions notified after those inspections down to a residual EUR 30,000 at 30.06.2025, without stating the outcome. Banca d'Italia fined Directa EUR 40,000 in October 2024 over its remuneration policy, opened a further procedure on governance and internal controls in January 2025 and inspected the firm from 24.02.2026 to 13.05.2026; Directa set aside EUR 120,000 for possible sanctions not yet notified. Separately, according to Directa's financial reports (the 2024 annual report and the half-year reports to 30.06.2025 and 30.06.2026), the Turin prosecutor's case no. 12888/2023 led on 03.03.2026 to the committal for trial of the company (under d.lgs. 231/2001) and of defendants including some directors, members of the board of statutory auditors (collegio sindacale) and a former manager. The charges concern alleged offences from January 2019 to June 2023, among them unauthorised banking and lending, private corruption and false accounting; in the corruption counts the prosecutor also names Directa as the injured party. The first hearing is set for November 2026, and Directa calls the charges unfounded. None of this decides the outcome, but it is part of what you are choosing.

All of Directa's platforms are developed in-house and free, and all of them work on the same account: an order placed in one shows up in the others.

• dLite runs in any recent browser and is one of the two modes of the Directa app for iOS and Android; the other is Libera. It covers order entry, charts, margin and short positions, and includes optionRuler for options. On mobile devices, biometric login by Face ID or Touch ID is available.
• Libera is the simplified web platform for newcomers; you can order by amount there and the system works out the number of shares.
• Darwin (now Darwin 2) is the installed desktop platform for active traders, with resizable tiles, layouts across several monitors, news filters and the DirectaCHAT video channel built in.
• Classic is the original platform, open to all clients and, according to Directa, favoured by long-standing ones.
• Alongside them: flashBoard, flashBook and multiBook, touchTrader for iPhone and iPad, the third-party charting software Traderlink Visual Trader, and an API through which, according to the homepage, clients can connect their own applications.

The platforms stream quotes tick by tick (except Classic), support market, limit, stop-loss and conditional orders, short selling with same-day or overnight cover through securities lending, and buying on margin. For every order they show the full time history from entry to execution. Real-time quotes for Borsa Italiana and for the main US exchanges are free for private clients.

The app is the weaker half. On 02.11.2026 the Directa app had a rating of 3.8 from 124 ratings on the Italian App Store and 3.3 from 448 ratings on Google Play, modest scores for a broker of this size. A free demo gives 15 days with EUR 100,000 of virtual money on all platforms, enough to try Darwin before the first deposit.

Research is practical rather than editorial: news services and RSS feeds in the platforms, intraday and historical charts, and tables of the stocks available for margin and short selling, but no in-house analyst coverage that we found.

For a domestic Italian broker the product list is long:

• Shares on Euronext Milan and Euronext Growth Milan, Xetra, SIX, Cboe Europe, NYSE, Nasdaq, AMEX and the US OTC market. US pre-market trading starts at 13:00 and post-market runs from 22:00 to 23:00 Italian time, routed to ECNs. Some US stocks are excluded, among them companies incorporated in Italy, France, Spain or Israel, shares under USD 0.50 and USD 50 million of market capitalisation, Pink Sheets, and publicly traded partnerships.
• ETFs, ETCs and ETNs on ETFplus, Euronext Paris and Amsterdam, Xetra and the US exchanges, crypto ETPs included.
• Bonds on MOT and EuroTLX; professional clients can also trade euro bonds via Bloomberg MTF at 0.1% with a EUR 20 minimum.
• Certificates and covered warrants on SEDEX and EuroTLX.
• Funds traded on MIV and on ATFund.
• Options and futures on IDEM (FTSE MIB), Eurex (Euro Stoxx 50, DAX, Bund and others) and CME/CBOT, from micro contracts to E-minis, grain and currency futures.
• CFDs via LMAX Exchange: currency pairs, commodities, indices and 12 cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and nine others), tradable seven days a week, with no wallet involved. The commission is 0.003% of the value (minimum EUR 1.50, EUR 2 on indices) and 0.2% with a EUR 2 minimum on crypto CFDs, which need a margin of 50%. Directa's own risk warning states that 77.20% of retail investors trading CFDs with Directa lost money, a figure calculated for 2022.

Margin trading is part of the offer: dynamic margin allows up to five times the available cash on selected stocks, with margins between 50% and 20% depending on volatility (10% intraday with the 'turbo' option), and up to 80% of the value of marginable holdings counts as buying power. Short positions can be held overnight through securities lending. On CFDs, an automatic stop loss closes positions once losses reach 50% of the margin posted, as ESMA's rules require.

Not on offer are spot crypto with a wallet and interest on cash; we found no mention of fractional shares at all.

For a resident of Italy the tax service is often the deciding factor, and Directa offers it in full. Under the regime amministrato Directa acts as withholding agent: it calculates the gain on each sale using the weighted average cost, applies the 26% substitute tax (12.5% on government bonds of white-list countries), offsets losses realised at Directa and carries surplus losses forward for 4 years. Directa sums it up as: you do nothing, Directa calculates and pays the taxes. The account is also outside the monitoraggio fiscale obligations. The exception Directa names is non-harmonised ETFs, whose balance is settled in the tax return. Investors who prefer the regime dichiarativo choose it when opening the account; a switch takes effect from 1 January after a written request by 31 December. The choice concerns capital gains (redditi diversi); according to Directa, dividends and interest are taxed the same way under both regimes. Directa also handles the stamp duty on securities and the Italian financial transaction tax.

The Investi Italia PIR account is a separate account for the Italian PIR tax wrapper, built around a single ETF: Amundi's ITAMID (ISIN FR0011758085), which tracks Italian mid and small caps. It costs 0.05% of the portfolio value per quarter, minimum EUR 15; purchases above EUR 2,000 and all orders within the PAC are commission-free, while sales and smaller purchases pay the Semplice profile. Directa runs checks to keep the account within the rules, for example moving contributions above EUR 40,000 a year out of the PIR, but the responsibility stays with the client. The PIR account is not available through partner banks.

The PAC in ETF is a free savings plan: all orders are free and there is no management fee. You choose from more than 900 ETFs and ETCs traded on Borsa Italiana, from issuers including Amundi, Xtrackers, iShares, Vanguard, VanEck and WisdomTree, and set 1 to 4 purchase dates a month. Orders go into the closing auction on the chosen day, and the plan can be changed or stopped until 17:00 on the order day. Directa names no minimum amount on the pages we read.

Opening is fully online and takes minutes with Italian documents. You confirm your e-mail address and mobile number by OTP, enter the IBAN of your current account and identify yourself with SPID, the electronic identity card (CIE) or SelfID (an identity document plus the codice fiscale, via smartphone). The contract is signed by OTP and is normally active within minutes; the client number and a temporary password follow by e-mail and SMS. Accounts can be opened directly with Directa or through a partner bank; since 1 July 2025 more than 30 partner banks have been able to open an account at ICCREA to settle trades placed through Directa.

We found no route for people who do not live in Italy: onboarding depends on Italian identity schemes and a codice fiscale, the tax service is built for Italian taxpayers, and the website is in Italian. We therefore list Italy as the only country.

Funding is by bank transfer only, from and to accounts in your own name. Incoming transfers must come from a bank in the SEPA area, not from foreign payment or e-money institutions. A SEPA transfer is normally credited by the next business day, an urgent transfer the same day if it arrives by 17:15, and an instant transfer from a registered IBAN within 60 minutes. Up to three IBANs can be registered for withdrawals, and every outgoing transfer is confirmed by OTP. Transfers are free.

Support is available by phone in Italian and English on +39 011 0884141, Monday to Friday 08:00–20:30, by live chat Monday to Friday 08:00–22:00, and by e-mail at directa@directa.it. Directa shows a 'Miglior Servizio Clienti' award on its own website; the page text does not name who awarded it.

Education has grown recently: the Directa Academy, launched in November 2025, offers live and on-demand courses free of charge and had about 22,000 subscribers by mid-2026, alongside webinars, a podcast and events such as the Directa Summit, which drew more than 2,000 participants in June 2026.