Orca Investment App Reviews 26

I'm a total shares novice, so please read from that perspective. This is my first investment app too.

However, my five stars is based on their service itself: their support is top notch and responds very promptly at times I didn't expect such as weekends.

I had a number of issues mostly caused by being a beginner (not knowing I couldn't use a joint account) and by the Starling connector not working.

The former problem was explained promptly and they kept in touch regarding Starling's Truelayer issue. This was resolved within 2 working days by Starling and Linara the chat lady informed me promptly.

Deposits do not come through immediately - and it's very slow on a weeked; however, I understand this is as much, if not more, to do with banks than Orca.

I was able to buy a bunch of different stocks very easily, no hassle at all and understand all the charges up front without problems.

For a beginner, I believe this is a great option.

Downsides: This, at time of writing, is a very new release (December 2020) and has a limited amount of stocks to choose from. However they intend to expand this over time.

I'm very much hoping to get Canadian stocks on there for one!

It's been a good experience once I got through my technical issues.

One thing I particularly like - they do NOT rely on your phone's security pin/password at all. They use their own pin. Others demand my phone itself be secured - which for someone in lockdown who doesn't go out, is a surprising pain. Trivial I know but it was a nudge that meant I didn't try Freetrade!

App makers - do this, have your OWN security pin, don't rely on the phone one. Its annoying.

And thank you Orca.

I deposited £200 and after 12 hours the money are still not in the account, I'm starting to think that I lost it.
Avoid!!!

Having experienced other app based trading platforms, decided to give this one a go. There are mostly UK stocks and ETFs which is a bit too limited for my liking. They may introduce more in the future but it’s not a wide selection at the time of writing.

The worse experience so far is the “T+2” settlement period. This means that once you sell your stock, it takes 2 working days for the cash to be available to buy another stock. I use many other apps platforms and they have cash that is immediately available to buy another stock.

Another issue is the sudden introduction of the £1 charge. They sent an email retrospectively on the 12 Jan that they will be turning this fee on the 12 Jan. there was no prior warning. They have since given the first 5 trades for free. But nevertheless, they should have warned this earlier.

I also had to wait 1 week after requesting a cash withdrawal. Not the type of experience I’ve encountered with other platforms.

I’m sorry, there’s just too many negatives right now to consider using the platform.

I've used a few investment apps before but this one looks quite polished, yet this is not that big as freetrade or other competitors, but the app offers different features like the options, the performance history and overview of current trading prices compared to the other sites, I like it so far, also I recommend referral program if you are new to investments and you'd like to get a free stock to start from. Good job.

Update at the end.
Orca launched and seemed to be an excellent addition to the UK app based broker selection. I liked the interface and bought in. I'm not a big trader and i dont have a lot of spare cash but their advertisement of a commission free trading platform made me more than happy to deposit a small amount to try the service out.

I bought around £10 in a handful of companies.

At 8:01am on 12/1/21 I was advised with NO prior warning that at 8:00am Orca had introduced a £1 fee for each trade. I had no opportunity to either sell my investments or consolidate them into one company without incurring what equates to a 10% loss on each of my buys.

I know in the grand scheme of things this isn't a massive amount but the fact that they sent the warning out AFTER it came into effect is very disappointing and I won't be using them again. I feel cheated.

Update: you can see the reply to my review below, whilst it is factual and accurate I still do not believe that Orca were as transparent with these fees as they lead us to believe with their below statement. It was advertised as "commission free", this fee may not be counted as a commission but it's still a fee.
The CEO reaches out to me and probably all customers to apologise for how this fee was sprung on us and promised that our next 5 trades would be free.

That is something I suppose and I am thankful that they realised there was a problem and put steps in place to placate their customers who felt wronged.

Going forward we all know where we stand and with that in mind i edit my rating and review to reflect this.

Orca does have a nice app, there maybe isn't the largest selection of stocks that some of their competitors have but if you've heard of a company without having had to do any research then it's probably available to buy.

If you have a small bankroll for your investment I wouldn't recommend Orca. As I stated above if you were to invest £10 in a company you'd lose £1 straight away, meaning that you'd need your investment to increase in value by over 22% in order to cash that investment out for the same £10 you put into it.

If you are investing £100 then that £2 fee (£1 for buying and £1 for selling) requires much less of a price increase to cover (just over 2%).

One of the best trading apps around I was in alphia testing and they was helpful they toke alot of feedback