Stock trading app and FCA-regulated Broker Trading 212 are no longer accepting new users after retail investors began signing up for the service en masse. The London-based company said it would resume allowing the creation of new accounts only after processing all existing applications in its queue. Trading 212 isn't the only platform struggling, as Robinhood, IG Group and others have experienced outages as the number of retail outlets soared this week. In a statement posted on Twitter, the company provided further details on its decision not to onboard new customers, saying: “Due to unprecedented demand, we have temporarily stopped receiving new customers. Once we process the existing queue, we will be open to new registrations. We apologize for the inconvenience caused and thank you very much for your understanding."
Service interruptions
Before announcing that it would stop adding new users, Trading 212 also had difficulties transmitting orders due to the high level of demand. This led to existing orders eventually being executed with a delay as reordering became impossible using the service. For those who don't know, the current market craze is a direct result of Reddit users on the WallStreetBets subreddit. Once these users realized that hedge funds were shorting the shares of video game retailer GameStop, they began buying the company's shares on their own. After GameStop shares rose from €20 a share to a high of €347 on Wednesday, WallStreetBets users began trying to inflate the share price of other companies, including AMC, BlackBerry and Nokia. This led Trading 212, Robinhood and other platforms to stop trading and no longer allow their users to buy GameStop shares. Trading 212 will start attracting new users soon, but the US financial market and even global financial markets are likely to crack down on WallStreetBets and other retail investors who organize online. Through the financial tycoons