Superhero Review; Is this trading platform safe to use?

Superhero review from an experienced and long term investor. Can you trust this low cost broker with your share portfolio?

Superhero Trading is one of the newest Fintech’s to move into the Australian investing market, having launched in September 2020. Offering $5 brokerage per trade and a minimum trade amount of only $100 (most conventional brokers have a minimum of $500) makes Superhero one of Australia’s cheapest Brokerage platforms – on par with IG and OpenTrader’s lowest brokerage tier, but beating them overall because Superhero is a flat fee for any size trade.

“We are making investing accessible to the younger – there are a lot that feel locked out of the market, so they are going to the higher cost incumbents but they don’t really have to any more”

John Winters, CEO Superhero

The Good

  • Cheap brokerage for Australian shares at $5 per trade
  • Minimum transaction size of only $100
  • $0 brokerage on US shares
  • No monthly fees, no hidden fees
  • Easy to use platform and awesome mobile app
  • Invest in some ETFs brokerage free

The Bad

  • Not individually CHESS sponsored (you don’t get a unique HIN)
  • Currently only available for Australian and US markets, with a 0.7% FX fee

Verdict: Superhero has one of the lowest brokerage costs and is easy and simple to use

This article will explore what Superhero is, my experience using the platform, what I learned from chatting to their CEO John Winters, what their company can offer investors, and whether I think it is a suitable share trading and brokerage tool or not for those on the path to Financial Independence.

As of the 9th of March 2021, Superhero abolished fees on the ‘Superhero Live account’ effectively upgrading all Superhero accounts from Basic to the Live functionality, as well as removing some other fees. They also brought in some new awesome features like being able to invest in some ASX listed ETFs brokerage free!

CaptainFI is not a Financial Advisor and the information below is not financial advice. This website is reader-supported, which means we may be paid when you visit links to partner or featured sites, or by advertising on the site. For more information please read my Privacy PolicyTerms of Use, and Financial Disclaimer.

Superhero review logo
Superhero ASX share trading

Superhero trading review

Superhero claim to be democratising investing, making it available to everyone without having to resort to micro-investing platforms which actually sneakily have pretty high ongoing fees (which seriously impact your investment return over time). Superhero aims to be a fintech market disruptor, shaking up the Australian investing landscape and helping those wanting to invest but feeling priced out of the market.

With over 300,000 retail investing accounts opened in Australia across all platforms in the first half of 2020 alone, it is clearly a booming industry – maybe it is FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), ‘Corona Cash’ handouts, super withdrawals or perhaps it is just TINA (There Is No Alternative) – but one thing is clear, lots of Aussies are wanting to invest, and Superhero is making it incredibly easy to do so.

Most of these retail investors previously had to make a choice; open a clunky account with a conventional bank’s investing division and pay eye watering brokerage fees, deal with long waiting times and red tape, and have minimum $500 investment portions (which make brokerage a ridiculous % of your trade), participate in micro-investing platforms (where the catch is high ongoing management expense ratios) or try and find a sweet spot with a Fintech somewhere in between.

Dubbed as ‘Australia’s answer to Robinhood’ (although Superhero’s CEO John Winters doesn’t really like this analogy), Superhero offers an industry-leading low brokerage of $5 per trade and a minimum trade size of only $100, with an easy-to-use platform to make investing available to everyone – this is actually pretty much Superhero’s core motto.

They work a little differently to most conventional share trading platforms; their use of automation and new financial technology, as well as modern corporate and financial structures, allows them to operate with much lower costs and therefore pass the savings onto their customers.

Debuting in September 2020, Superhero has already had investors sign up in the tens of thousands, all keen to take advantage of Australia’s cheapest brokerage. Other brokerage platforms that are kind of similar to Superhero include trading platforms Robinhood and Stake.

“Superhero Markets and Superhero Nominees are both authorised representatives of Sanlam Private Wealth. Accordingly, Superhero acts on behalf of Sanlam Private Wealth.”

Superhero – Financial Services Guide

Management and team behind Superhero ASX trading

Superhero Trading is majority owned by its founders John Winters and Wayne Baskin, and inspired by the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) giants Zip (ASX:Z1P) and Afterpay (ASX:APT), a project that has been over two years in the making. Zip founder Larry Diamond and Afterpay founder Nick Molnar teamed up with finance experts John Winters and Wayne Baskin to raise over (AUD) $25 Million in funding to invest in the project, and appointed John Winters as the Chief Executive Officer.

One of John’s key motivations is wanting to modernize the investing industry and how we interact with technology to invest. With extensive experience in the finance, banking and investing industry over the past decade (including working for Macquarie bank as well as other private wealth management firms), he said ahead of Superhero’s 2020 launch that he…

really struggled with how archaic the industry is – It’s built for the boomers, and they’re in their retirement phase.”

John Winters

John saw during his time at Zip how fast-paced the company was – they used technology to create and settle accounts in real time, avoiding significant delays experienced with conventional banking and credit industries. He knew this technology could be applied to other sectors, which began the brainchild that was Superhero trading.

John Winters Superhero trading review
John Winters, CEO of Superhero.

What features does Superhero Trading offer?

One of the main features that Superhero offers is the ability to trade ASX listed products for less than $500 per trade – their minimum investment is only $100. The only other brokers that offer this is Commsec Pocket, Stake, and a few other microinvesting platforms. However, these micro-investing or US share trading platforms typically only let you purchase ETFs, managed funds, or US shares, whereas Superhero allows you to buy any ASX-listed stock.

superhero trading features
Superhero Share trading features

Superhero offers $5 trades for ASX listed stocks with a Basic account. Initially when Superhero launched, the limitation was that you could only purchase shares at market rate (this means when you submit your buy or sell order, you won’t know exactly what they will go for, and you will just receive the floating market rate at the time of settlement).

However, now Superhero has dropped the fees for Live accounts and has upgraded everybody to this increased membership tier for free. This means you can now also Place Limit orders with a basic account, as well as access Live price data through Superhero.

Superhero also now offers comprehensive tax reporting through their ‘Reports’ Feature – a much needed functionality, as well as real time account funding using PayID banking.

Another new feature that Superhero has added is its Autoinvest feature. This lets you automatically invest in shares (such as the ETFs and LICs we know and love) so you can put your investing on auto pilot and cruise toward Financial Independence stress free.

Superhero Trading Brokerage and Fee Schedule

Superhero offer industry leading unlimited $5 trades on the Australian Securities Exchange with a minimum trade size of $100. Even better, to encourage long term investing there is $0 brokerage on the Purchases of some Exchange Traded Funds (although you do have to pay $5 brokerage if you decide to sell them!).

Superhero offers brokerage free trades on the US market. They charge 70bps or 0.70% for transactions, meaning it costs you $7 for every $1000 you move across to your US share portfolio cash funding account (and vice versa – the fee applies when you withdraw from your US share portfolio cash funding account). This is pretty expensive but still cheaper than most other Australian Brokers.

For US trades there are also Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Fees and a Trading Activity Fee (TAF) which are applied to sell transactions with more information available on Superhero’s Fee Schedule.

There is also no monthly account fees, withdrawal or inactivity fees.

There is a $1 fee to BPAY into your account (but PAY ID transfers are free). Of course, you will want to check out all of Superhero’s terms, conditions and fees on Superhero’s Product Disclosure statement.

So what’s the catch? There doesn’t really seem to be any big red flags immediately apparent – but overall as a broker Superhero works a little differently to other share trading companies – we will get to this in the CHESS sponsorship section.

Superhero mobile app

Superhero have launched a mobile online trading application, which looks pretty slick! You can view your dashboard (home screen), navigate to their invest tab where you can make investments, view your trading activity, keep tabs on your brokerage account balance through the wallet, and view your profile and reports to track performance and tax liabilities.

superhero trading mobile paltform view
Superhero Trading mobile application

Is Superhero Trading CHESS sponsored?

I will put up the disclaimer first that I am not a finance or legal professional, genius, or by any stretch of the imagination an expert. I am however a serious investor who is trying to figure out what this means to me and my investments. So, accordingly, I spoke at length with Superhero CEO John Winters, as well as Superhero Marketing Manager Rachel Hopping, who explained to me just how Superhero’s CHESS sponsorship arrangement works (John and Rachel may have had to explain this section to me a couple of times).

I always thought that CHESS Sponsorship would be a non-negotiable must and one that I definitely look for in a broker. CHESS sponsorship means that your shares are directly registered to you on the ASX register via an individual Holder Identification Number (HIN), and you retain both legal and full beneficial ownership rights of the share, as well as receive corporate fraud and bankruptcy protection through this third party.

This is often reasoned online in forums as necessary to prevent a drastic collapse and loss of shareholders investments (and money) like what happened with Opes Prime (a stock lending company) in 2008.

Remember when I said Superhero do things a little differently? They use a form of CHESS sponsorship, but it’s not in the way many other share trading platforms are…

Superhero is not actually a ‘stock broker’ itself – they are technically a share trading platform. This is really just semantics, but the ASX reserve the right to use the terminology ‘stock broker’ to a specific set of ‘approved’ business partners. Superhero work with the wholesale stock broker OpenMarkets to provide share trading – OpenMarkets provide wholesale brokerage executions using API systems for many retail share trading providers such as SelfWealth, Pearler, Sixpark and Raiz, as well as their own share trading platform OpenTrader.

What Superhero does differently to their competitors is that they collate the day’s trades and then execute (settle) each line of trade through OpenMarkets at the end of the day. This means they only pay a single wholesale brokerage execution fee for each ‘line of trades’ (individual share listings), rather than brokerage for every single transaction.

In this way, Superhero works on a ‘High volume, low fee’ custodianship business model, and is able to pass the savings onto investors in the form of $5 trades. This just isn’t possible with many conventional share trading platforms.

What Superhero have also been able to do differently is to automate this process. There are some financial services companies such as NetWealth and Hub24 that use similar arrangements, but with high cost overheads from legacy corporate structures and hundreds of employees, these benefits just get absorbed by the company before they can be passed on to customers.

So is Superhero CHESS sponsored or not? Not in the way you might think. Superhero hold an Institutional Holder Identification Number (iHIN) registered with the CHESS sponsored wholesale broker OpenMarkets. They do not provide each investor with their own unique HIN – so your individual shares are not allocated to your personal HIN. Superhero hold your shares for you in their custodian account, where you are a beneficiary in terms with their financial licence.

If Superhero collapses, not having shares allocated to each unique personal HIN means the process of transferring your holdings across to another broker is less clear than what it would be with a conventional CHESS sponsored platform, and is a polarising point of contention for a lot of investors. Rachel provided the following reassurances

“Your assets […] are still held in your individual name and you are the beneficial and equitable owner of your shares. You are entitled to participate in the corporate actions associated with those shares, and should Superhero cease to operate as a business, your shares are able to be transferred to another broker.”

Rachel Hopping, Superhero Marketing Manager

It is conjectured that custodian account share structures give these types of platforms the ability to use your shares for various commercial and profit making purposes (such as lending shares out to short sellers and delayed trading for behind the scenes ‘margin scalping’). When I spoke with CEO John Winters, he assured me that this could never happen to Investors using Superhero. John passionately explained that;

“Superhero is a highly regulated entity and is licenced to provide custody and nominee services under its Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) issued by ASIC. We are required to hold regulatory capital and under no circumstances are we able to access clients funds or assets for our own use.”

John Winters, CEO of Superhero

John then further explained to me that under the terms of Superhero’s AFSL from the Australian Securities Investment Commission, they actually had increased regulatory compliance requirements as compared to share trading platforms that issue HINs through third party market participants. This includes reporting requirements, strict auditing and holding significant capital requirements.

When I asked what would happen if Superhero did collapse, John indicated that the shareholdings would default to their wholesale broker OpenMarkets, who themselves are required to hold over AUD $25 Million in regulatory capital.

OpenMarkets offer a retail brokerage service called OpenTrader (which also offers $5 trades, but limited to $2500 trade size), so it is possible that your holdings could end up there, or that you would have the choice of receiving the cash value of your holdings, or you could have them transferred to another broker.

However, on the opposing view of Custodian investment arrangements, Chris Brycki warned potential investors;

“In the 2000s there was a move towards indirect ownership because it was a way to reduce trading costs, improve efficiency and increase profitability for investment companies.

This typically involved investments being housed by a 3rd party who keeps a log of who owns what. Indirect investments can be commingled or managed under an omnibus account structure.Indirect ownership relies on investors having a contract with ‘counterparties’ who promise the separation of your investments from others.

The weakness of this model was exposed around the global financial crisis in 2008-09 when there were some well known cases of financial counterparties not being able to meet their obligations and investors losing money as a result. Some of the infamous examples include Lehman Brothers in the US and Opus Prime, Storm Financial and MF Global in Australia.”

Chris Bryckie, CEO of Stockspot Investing

Now as I said at the start, I am not a financial expert, this has never happened to me, and I am still delving into Superhero’s Financial Services Guide and Product Disclosure Statement for the details, and would recommend you do the same – or at least ask the question of their customer support.

To summarise – the low brokerage fees of Superhero (which are having a tendency to trend the whole Australian investing market in general toward $0 trades in the future) are a result of their custodian shareholding structure rather than a conventional CHESS-sponsored HIN issue structure. You become the beneficiary (beneficial owner) of the share rather than its legal owner, and just have to trust that Superhero will act in your best interests in accordance with their AFSL and ASIC’s regulations. This is something you will have to personally weigh up and decide whether is important to you or not.

For those worried about an ‘Opes Prime’ or ‘BBY’ type event with Superhero (Opes Prime and BBY are two recent examples of large Australian financial institutions which have collapsed), John provided me the following reassurance about CHESS sponsorship and Superhero;

“For those still concerned about CHESS sponsorship, my answer is maybe you need to question why would you even want a HIN?

Selling Fear can be a very easy and profitable thing to do in finance, especially when its disguised as conservatism. This is why we see pushy insurance salespeople advocating high cost and sometimes unnecessary products, why bonds and fixed interest securities are promoted and so profitable for issuers, and why some companies are obsessed with promoting CHESS sponsorship as part of their marketing.

Opes Prime was not a broker. It was a stock lending company. It collapsed because it was lending stock out and ANZ sold customer assets to settle its corporate debt. This is vastly different to custody.

BBY issued all clients a HIN. Their stock was held on a HIN when they collapsed. So be careful suggesting an individual HIN is a rock solid, no loss way to hold shares. It’s actually the opposite and why IG Markets, Interactive Brokers, Vanguard, Stake, Selfwealth US, ETFs, managed funds, industry and retail super all sit their assets in custody.

At Superhero we have incredibly tight financial regulations which we must adhere to, issued and regulated by ASIC and championed by the Financial Services Royal Commission. Superhero are incredibly aware and astute of our requirements and responsibilities, and have extensive experience including chair-members who actually acted against Opes Prime during legal and criminal proceedings.

John Winters, CEO of Superhero

Who really owns your shares? ABC CHESS sponsorship exposure

In the debate of CHESS sponsored vs Custodian shares, ABC News has reported about the rise of retail investments – interviewing Chris Brycki from Stockspot who warned about the risks of custodian investment schemes which whilst do lower the cost of brokerage, raise some important questions about regulation of legal and beneficial ownership of the retail investments. This 5 minute YouTube clip is WELL worth a watch:

Superhero Dividend Reinvestment

As Superhero is not Chess sponsored in the traditional way, you do not have an individual HIN, and can therefore not sign up for dividend reinvestment plans. All ASX and US stocks which pay dividends will pay these directly into your superhero wallet where you can choose to spend these how you like.

Although dividend reinvestment schemes are a great way to accumulate wealth in the background, their frequency and often smaller monetary value can cause headaches at tax time when tracking cost bases on sales. Using a portfolio tracker like Sharesight or Navexa can aid immensely when tracking dividends and reinvestments.

How to sign up for Superhero trading

Getting an account with Superhero is pretty easy – just head over to their website and follow the bouncing ball. It is a straightforward application process to easily create your account, which can be funded instantly using PayID. Then you just choose the shares or ETFs that you want. You can create an account in as little as 5 minutes, as opposed to the days or weeks you might have to wait with conventional brokers

superhero trading signup process
Signing up for Superhero is a streamlined process

How to invest using Superhero trading

When you sign into your Superhero account, you will be presented with different themes – For example Renewables, Health etc. This is super friendly for beginners and those who aren’t confident with investing and can be a great way to learn how to get started. Otherwise, under the Invest tab, you can simply search for the particular stock you want to invest in.

superhero trading dashboard

Personally though, I choose to invest in good quality, low management fee ETF securities and LICs in accordance with my personal financial Independence Investing Strategy, so I usually try to steer clear of owning direct shares or specific themes of shares myself.

Making a trade is very easy – once you have funded your account (either BPAY or PayID transfer to your account details provided when you open the account) you can start browsing or individually select your stock, ETF or LICs ticker code.

You can invest using market orders, which means you will pay whatever the floating market rate is for that stock at the time, or set up a limit order, which means you know exactly how much you will be buying (or selling) that particular stock for.

The trade gets entered into Superhero’s system using their Best Execution Policy, and Superhero then settles all trades at the conclusion of the business day.

As a custodian ownership agreement, Superhero then holds the stock on your behalf under a special ‘Company Holder Identification Number (HIN)’ organised by the ASX, and it will appear in your Superhero account. You are the full beneficial owner of the share.

As a beneficiary of the share under their custodianship, you receive all corporate rights and dividend payments from the share, as well as have the right to sell the share through Superhero if you ever so choose to.

I chose to invest in ‘HACK’ the Betashares Global Cybersecurity ETF. I put in ‘minimum chips’ of $100 to test it out, and this particular ETF was brokerage free. I got 11 units for $92, and the balance of my $100 stayed in my investment cash account. As you can see, this has currently grown by nearly 4% which is nice, and kind of what I would expect over a couple of months.

superhero trading dashboard

Captain FI’s Superhero Trading review

I’ll be completely honest though – I didn’t invest in HACK through Superhero because I wanted to – I just did it to test out Superhero. I had previously accessed the app through a friend’s account in order to test it and gather information for my review, but was asked by the team at Superhero to sign up to it myself and give it a go.

I was actually quite pleasantly surprised by how well it works. I was initially very dubious of Superhero due to the whole custodian arrangement, however the whole sign up, funding and purchasing of the share was very quick and streamlined, and it’s probably the easiest share trading platform I have used in terms of the user experience (UX). So they have done a pretty fantastic job designing their webpage and app interface.

The selling was also pretty easy, the reverse of buying, and the money from the sale was then put into my account and easy to transfer out.

The decision as to whether you are comfortable using Superhero and its custodian arrangement for beneficial ownership (versus a traditional CHESS sponsorship model) long term is probably worth looking at once you have a significant sum of money invested through the platform. But really this isn’t a big issue for beginners using it for micro-investing or for small amounts anyway.

Frequently asked questions about Superhero Trading

Answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the Superhero Trading platform.

Is Superhero trading safe?

When trading with Superhero, your shares are held under an institutional HIN (‘iHIN’) with the ASX CHESS database. This makes them better than many managed funds, but not as straightforward as if held on your individual HIN as per standard ASX CHESS-sponsored brokers such as Pearler.

Superhero manage your investments via a custodian model, which is the trade-off for slightly cheaper brokerage. This means your assets are effectively held with other investors assets on Superhero.

To clarify any potential risks to your assets and the safety of Superhero, Rachel Hopping (Superhero Marketing Manager) provided the following assurance;

“To suggest Superhero mixes up investor assets is misleading and incorrect. The assets of each client are held in individual client accounts. Client assets of failed broker, BBY were all held on individual HINs. Same goes for Commsec which was recently sued by ASIC for mixing up customer assets, despite individual HINs.”

Rachel Hopping, Superhero Marketing Manager

What is better – Selfwealth vs Superhero?

Selfwealth is a CHESS sponsored online share trading platform and Selfwealth trades execute immediately, whereas Superhero uses a custodian model to get cheaper brokerage and executes trades at the completion of the business day. I personally prefer Pearler over Selfwealth which is a CHESS sponsored investing platform with automated investing tools.

What are superhero fees?

Superhero trading charge $5 brokerage on ASX trades and $0 brokerage on US trades (remember the 0.7% FX fee though) and there are no monthly costs or inactivity fees.

Is Superhero CHESS sponsored?

Your investments through Superhero are not individually CHESS sponsored – you do not have an individual investor holder identification number (HIN) and instead, your shares are legally held in custody by Superhero for your beneficial ownership.

Superhero holds an ‘Institutional Holder Identification Number’ on the ASX CHESS registry through OpenMarkets, and manages all individual shareholder investments themselves in order to reduce costs.

This is not an entirely new concept – as explained by Rachel;

“It would be helpful for people to know that IG Markets, Interactive Brokers, Vanguard, Stake, Selfwealth US, ETFs, managed funds, industry and retail super all sit their assets in custody.”

Rachel Hopping, Superhero Marketing Manager

What is the Superhero minimum trade?

You must trade a minimum of $100 using superhero trading

Who owns superhero trading?

Superhero Trading is majority owned by its founders John Winters and Wayne Baskin, and Nick Molnar and Larry Diamond are also personal investors. They raised over $25 Million in pre-IPO funding round by institutional investors, however, John and Wayne maintain a controlling stake in Superhero. Superhero has a board of directors that decides all major business decisions.

Summary of Superhero trading review

Superhero is one of Australia’s cheapest share trading platforms at only $5 per trade for Australian listed stocks (ASX) with a minimum trade size of only $100 rather than the conventional minimum of $500 with other brokers.

Superhero is very user-friendly – it is easy to get started, make an account, PayID transfer in, and start trading that day. It makes it a very attractive option for new or young investors, especially if you have only just discovered Financial Independence.

As a minimalist trading platform, Superhero doesn’t have a lot of the features that some other brokers tend to offer. It lacks conditional orders, detailed stock analysis and ratings – but this is a very good thing. Superhero could be a great no frills option for those of us starting on the path to Financial Independence who want Australia’s cheapest brokerage to buy shares. We can’t control the market, but we certainly can control the fees we pay along the way!

I personally applaud their minimalist style, which helps cut all the bullshit out of investing since realistically no smart investor would ever get their investing information through a broker or share trading platform anyway. Informed long term investors will research their investments thoroughly and conduct due diligence ‘off-platform’ such as reading a prospectus, annual reports, and statements from companies that have been vetted by financial regulators (like ASIC). And of course, expert investors just ignore everything and buy the total market through indexes anyway!

Honestly, all you really need from a trading platform is literally a way to buy the share with the lowest brokerage possible, nothing else. So in my mind, Superhero ticks a lot of boxes here, especially for their brokerage-free ETFs.

The major decision point here is whether you are comfortable with their unique version of CHESS sponsorship and custodian shareholding arrangement. Remember, it is: Your money – Your move!

P.S. – you can use a free Sharesight account if you want accounting functionality to track your Superhero shares and tax liabilities

Do you use Superhero or have you been researching it for shares trading? Let us know your experience in the comments below!

Competitors of SuperHero trading

So what about the competition? Superhero offers an industry leading price, but they don’t provide individual CHESS sponsorship for your investments – which offers less certainty when compared to Superhero’s main competitors in the Financial Independence investing space – Pearler and Selfwealth.

Superhero vs Pearler Share Trading

Pearler review logo

Pearler, founded in 2018, fills the niche role of a share trading and stock brokerage platform for those on the path to Financial Independence with its $6.50 ($5.50 if pre-purchased) trades and automated FI investing features. Pearler’s crowning ‘Pearl’ in my mind, is its Autoinvest feature. This lets you automatically invest in shares (such as the ETFs and LICs we know and love) so you can put your investing on auto pilot and cruise toward Financial Independence stress free. You also get a free trade on your birthday!

Because of my inability to maintain a disciplined manual investing strategy, I have switched to using Pearler to automate my share market investments.

Superhero Vs SelfWealth Share trading

SelfWealth is an Australian online discount broker which is CHESS sponsored.

SelfWealth has flat $9.50 trades, which makes it one of the cheapest brokers around and provides what I think is industry leading service. It covers all the basics of what you need and even provides interest on its linked cash trading account which is run through ANZ bank. It is worth noting that most other brokers charge a percentage fee which means that you could be paying hundreds or even thousands in brokerage for bigger trades, as opposed to SelfWealth’s flat $9.50 trade.

You can use SelfWealth to buy any share listed on the Australian Stock Market (ASX). This includes ETFs for other markets, meaning yes, it’s possible to own shares in every company in the world through one low cost investment vehicle purchased through SelfWealth.

If you’re interested in starting a SelfWealth account or transferring your holdings to Self Wealth, I have completed a comprehensive review for readers.

Other brokers to choose from

Be sure to check out the following reviews on brokers and other trading platforms that offer online trading to buy Australian and international shares. As always, make sure you are fully educated before making a choice on any particular one.

Big 4 banks

Fintechs and smaller banks

Microinvesting platforms

Financial Disclaimer

Financial Disclaimer: CaptainFI is NOT a financial advisor and does not hold an AFSL. This is not financial Advice!

I am not a financial adviser and I do not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL). In this article, I am giving you factual, balanced information without judgment or bias, to the best of my ability. I am not giving you any general or personal financial advice about what you should do with your investments. Just because I do something with my money (or use a particular service or platform) doesn’t mean it is automatically appropriate for your personal circumstances. I do not recommend nor endorse any financial or investment product, and my usage or opinion of any product should not be interpreted as an endorsement, advertisement, or intent to influence.

I can only provide factual information based on my journey to Financial Independence, and that is provided for general informational and entertainment purposes only. I make no guarantee about the performance of any product, and although I strive to keep the information accurate and updated as it changes, I make no guarantee about the correctness of reviews or information posted.

Remember – you always need to do your own independent research and due diligence before making any transaction. This includes reading and analysing Product Disclosure Statements, Terms and Conditions, Service Arrangement and Fee Structures. It is always smart to compare products and discuss them, but ultimately you need to take responsibility for your use of any particular product and make sure it suits your personal circumstances. If you need help and would like to obtain personal financial advice about which investment options or platforms may be right for you, please talk to a licensed financial adviser or AFSL holder – you can take the first steps to find a financial advisor by reading this interview, or by visiting the ASIC financial adviser register and searching in your area.

For more information please read my Privacy PolicyTerms of Use, and Financial Disclaimer.

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13 thoughts on “Superhero Review; Is this trading platform safe to use?

  1. Superhero is OK for the basic stock orders at market price. However I’ve made a list of features that should be present:
    1) The ability to transfer positions. This is a feature that is planned but currently there is no ETA.
    2) For the $9 per month for the Live Data option, there should be a way to offset this cost, such as using trade brokerage, having say $100,000 of value in the account.
    3) Having foreign currency accounts.
    4) I was informed by a Superhero rep that the web version of the platform could only be used in Australia. He suggested that even a VPN couldn’t be used. I find this a major restriction, as I do a lot of traveling and continue to trade while doing so.
    5) The ability to trade on foreign markets, particularly on US stocks.

    So my assessment is that Superhero has a bit of a way to go yet before it attracts the serious Aussie investor.

    1. Hey mate,

      It’s a big discussion topic, and I’m actually writing up a dedicated post on this whole topic. The answer is that in Australia, being CHESS sponsored has some significant advantages for investors, which other investors overseas don’t necessarily get the same level of protection. It’s not totally necessary and millions of investors are happy without it, but again, it does provide more protection and flexibility for Aussie investors. When you have a HIN from a CHESS sponsored broker, you can elect to transfer your stocks over to another CHESS sponsored broker and your current broker can’t stop that from happening. You take your stocks like a metaphorical ‘taking the carpet out from underneath them’. When your stocks are held under custody in a custodian structure you might have to ‘play the game’ to ever transfer your stocks out of that brokers custodian structure which would have to be in accordance with the terms and conditions or financial services guide that you signed up with which could include paying exit or transfer fees. Some brokers like Stake have high transfer fees if you ever move stocks out of them. This could also be difficult if the custodian broker ever goes out of business, but there are regulators which ensure you eventually get your shares but it could be a lengthy process

    1. Hi Syed, yeah. There is absolutely a chance of losing your whole investment whenever you make any kind of investment in the share market. Companies go bust all the time. This is why I don’t buy individual stocks and stick to broad market indexes. If you are referring to superhero going bust, then yes this is also a possibility. Do some googling of BBY and Opus Prime – big companies that went bust. Personally I don’t really think there is a high risk of this happening, but remember I am just a guy on the internet and you need to make these decisions for yourself and do your own financial research. Welcome to the wonderful world of investing!

  2. Thank for this review of Superhero. I came across it when searching for more information about the company after reading about a scam (in an ABC expose) involving a bond purchasing scheme in which the scammers claimed (falsely) to represent JP Morgan (and fleeced Australian investors of large sums of their money!). I am very reassured by what I read in your review! I began investing through Superhero soon after it launched and was perturbed that no documentation of my purchases had arrived (I had not fully read or absorbed the Financial Services Guide, as you can probably tell!) and an enquiry to Superhero helped me to understand why. I appreciated the cautionary advice about custodians, but am comfortable with the associated risks. I had also started to invest in US shares through Stake at around that time. I am a ‘boomer’, and have been investing my own funds and those of several older family members, using more conventional but low(er)-cost brokers for several decades. In mid-2020 I invested in a portfolio of about 20 shares, based on recommendations from one of the Motley Fool programs (for which advice I pay) through Commsec. Transactions charges of approx. $30 apply to each trade (buy and sell) and on a $20k portfolio, this represents a significant, and I felt, unnecessary loss. I had heard that the trend in the US was towards no-cost brokerage, which, clearly, had not found its way to Australia, and soon afterwards I discovered Superhero. I am very happy with the service that Superhero provides (and also with Stake); currently, I am in the process of transferring brokerage from Commsec to Superhero, laying the groundwork for low-cost ($5 per trade; $0 on buys of ETFs) and have had to jump a few hurdles placed in the path of the transfer by Commsec (not surprisingly!). I endeavour to inform myself about investment products & platforms and I am, to some extent, cautious, but not timid. To date, I cannot fault the company. Again, thank you for the excellent review.

  3. Thanks for your opinion Greg Heard. I think I’ll sign up with Superhero mainly for US investing. I use SelfWealth at present which I reckon is ok. But SH has no brokerage on US trades which is a bonus. A feature I’d love to see would be trailing stop-loss orders or at least stop-loss orders. Maybe they’ll come in the future?
    Cheers man.

  4. Hi. Interesting post and replies. When using superhero for US stock purchases, how is the exchange rate? Is it ‘fair’?
    Also, what can anyone say about the business model in the US around zero-fee US stock transactions. Is there a fee for holding a US stock, and the service provider skims a small percentage?
    Thanks. Oli

  5. Hi.

    I can see you more than likely not had dealings with Superhero as an active trader on their platform? I have, and regret every moment of it!

    There is a known fault with their UI (User Interface) and their market team’s inability to execute trades quickly and efficiently. When we are talking about speed, we are talking in some cases milliseconds, or seconds. Superhero on average take 3 minutes (I’ve timed them countless times!), and worst case was 5-6 minutes to execute a trade – resulting in a very large loss for me!

    Over the course of a few weeks, I encountered this continuing lag with their execution of trades. Furthermore, there is a continuing lag with their up to date market pricing: manual refreshing is required, due to their insistence on lack of any such basics (they want to go all out with basics, hence a $5 brokerage fee!)!

    I have seen countless reviews of the negative and poor kind, all stating the same common faults and dating back many many months.

    Which begs to question as to why you have not updated your very own review? Or have you received some sort of financial benefit from Superhero for writing your review?

    You would be doing yourself justice by updating your review to assist others – especially the beginner traders – with avoiding losses as such.

    Regards,
    N. McKenzie.

    1. Hi Neil, sorry to hear you have had a shit experience. I have done a bit of trading on Superhero but wouldn’t call myself an ‘active trader’. I think if you are an ‘active trader’ you aren’t really an investor so, should possibly educate yourself on investing vs trading as investors grow rich whereas ‘active traders’ just lose money and usually just make money for the brokerage firms processing all the transactions. Anyway with that out of the question no, I haven’t found my trades lagging. I have recently put through 3 ‘market price’ trades to buy and hold thematic ETFs and they all executed as far as I could see, pretty much instantly. I would love to get some financial benefit from Superhero, but unfortunately for them they don’t want to work with me. It is a cost effective platform, however you don’t get an individual HIN (hence the discussion on is it *really* CHESS sponsored) and now it seems Stake has totally undercut the market ( I have heard but cannot confirm, free trades for a year and then $3 CHESS sponsored trades)

  6. Hi, at the risk of commenting on an old thread and article, I found this write up very balanced and informative even today – thanks! A key realisation in reading this was that our super funds have share assets held under similar institutional custodian arrangements, although possibly protected more through diversification. There really haven’t been many bad things happen in our AUS regulated environment when you consider the size of the exposure and after the sign on process and over a long period of time. I have to agree they have made the SH user experience so good, its hard not to like what it has on offer. I’d be keen to hear what happens comes tax time and if there is any changes when compared to having a personal HIN, if any comment or experience on this it would be good to hear.

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