Bolero vs Wealthsimple Trade — which broker is better?

Pros

• Run by KBC Bank NV, a Belgian credit institution supervised by the ECB together with the National Bank of Belgium and by the FSMA for conduct; the KBC Group is listed on Euronext Brussels
• Small orders from EUR 2.50 (up to EUR 250) on Euronext, Germany, the other online European markets, Toronto and the 100 ETFs of the ETF Playlist, and from USD 2.50 in the US
• No custody fee, no account management fee and no minimum deposit; opening and closing the account are free
• Belgian taxes handled at source: the stock exchange tax on every contract note, and from 1 June 2026 the 10% capital gains tax withheld unless you opt out
• More than 20 markets online, plus phone orders through the Orderdesk on exchanges such as Hong Kong, Japan and Australia
• Research included at no charge: a daily newsletter running since 2006, share analyses, Reuters and ABM Financial News, screeners and the Idea Center
• Invest & Repeat: periodic orders on the ETF Playlist monthly, every two months, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly, priced from EUR 2.50
• Long phone hours: the Orderdesk takes orders every trading day from 08:00 to 22:00

Cons

• Adults domiciled in Belgium only, with a Belgian current account; residents of other countries and US persons cannot open an account
• Mid-sized orders cost more than at low-cost platforms: on Euronext an order above EUR 2,500 costs EUR 15 per EUR 10,000, up to EUR 50
• A 0.60% currency conversion margin, 2% (maximum EUR 125) for collecting foreign dividends, and no credit interest on cash at present
• No futures, short selling or securities credit; we found no CFDs, forex trading or fractional shares, and Bolero points to trackers and turbos for commodities
• Crypto is limited to Bitcoin and Ether, cannot be transferred in, can leave only to an account at a regulated EU or EEA provider and is outside the guarantee fund
• A phone order costs EUR 15 when the security can be traded online, and the administration answers only during office hours

Pros

• CAD 0 commission on Canadian and US stocks and ETFs, plus USD 0 per US-listed equity and ETF options contract on every tier, including free assignment
• Futures at USD 1 per contract with free real-time futures market data — no Canadian competitor matches that combination
• CAD 0 to transfer your account out, where Questrade, Qtrade and the banks all charge CAD 150
• Best-rated broker app in Canada at 4.6 on the App Store across roughly 130,000 ratings, with real-time streaming quotes free to everyone
• 24/5 trading on eligible US stocks and ETFs and 24/7 on gold and crypto — the longest trading hours available in Canada
• Margin priced by total loan size, from 5.70% CAD under CAD 10,000 down to 3.24% from CAD 10 million, below the big banks' standard margin rates
• CIRO-regulated with CIPF coverage of CAD 1,000,000 per account category, backed by Power Corporation of Canada with a 52.4% stake
• Interest on chequing balances of 1.25% to 2.25% by tier, against effectively 0% on idle cash at most brokers

Cons

• The 1.5% CAD/USD conversion is the same as Questrade's. A USD account (CAD 10 a month on Core, free on Premium from CAD 100,000) removes it on the US trades themselves but not on the CAD you convert into it, which still costs 1.5% per transaction under CAD 10,000 and falls to 0% only from CAD 100,000; journalling at CAD 9.95 is the other way round it
• Crypto costs a flat 0.5% per trade plus a market-order spread for anyone without Active Trader status (50+ trades a month), every crypto order under CAD 100 carries a CAD 1 surcharge, and the 0% fee needs CAD 15 million of 30-day volume; staking takes 30% of rewards before validator fees
• No bonds, no GICs and no mutual funds anywhere in the self-directed account, so a fixed-income allocation has to be built entirely from ETFs
• No desktop platform, no Level 2 depth, no API and no paper-trading account; the research stack is news and basic charts rather than screeners and analyst coverage
• The crypto assets themselves sit outside CIPF protection and are held in trust instead — only the cash balance in a crypto account is covered, and the cold-storage insurance cited is USD 75 million per custodial partner, not per client
• Meaningful benefits are gated behind CAD 100,000 and CAD 500,000 balances, so the sticker price a small account actually pays is the least attractive version of the offer