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The options for investors under 18 are scarce in general. Most services require you to have a bank account with them, and others have limited investing features. Still, it is important to perform due diligence and ensure that your investing journey is off to a good, protected start.
Here are the factors we’ll walk through to weigh the legitimacy of Bloom, the investing and financial literacy app for teens under 18.
- Minimum Account Balances
- Trade Commissions
- Safety Features
- Learning and Ease of Use
- Investing Features
- Investment Assets
- Financial Security
- Education
- Licensing
- Cost
The ten factors above make Bloom one of the best teen investing apps for investors who care about financial security, education and investing features.
Minimum Account Balance
Bloom has no minimum account balances. The minimum deposit amount, due to standard deposit rules, is $1.
Trade Commissions
Bloom is a zero-commission investing app, so investors can buy and sell stocks without paying a trade fee on each order. A teen’s buying power is solely used for investing and building wealth.
Safety Features
Investing can be risky, so it’s important to have a strong safety net. Bloom has features that allow parents to regulate stock selections based on risk, turn on manual approval for each one, and customize deposit schedules and criteria for their teen. Some parents set “Locked Deposits” where their teen gets funds after they have completed certain financial literacy lessons.
Investing Capabilities
Bloom works with Alpaca Markets to provide the latest and greatest investing features, including digital trading, fractional investing for stocks and cryptocurrencies, stock alerts, real-time market data, ETFs and dividend support. On Bloom, investors can trade stocks, ETFs and 5 of the most popular cryptocurrencies.
Investment Assets
To promote safety and prevent illegal investing behavior, Bloom does not allow options trading or day trading, unless the investor meets the legal requirements.
Financial Security
Bloom uses bank-level security and SSL to ensure your information is fully protected. We also offer fractional investing, $0 commission on trades, a learning center with 80+ education modules co-created by Ivy League professors and an overall top-tier investing experience.
We use Plaid, Inc. to link your bank accounts, and will never store your online banking credentials. Security and safety is the most important priority to Bloom. We hold ourselves to the highest industry standards to ensure this is the case.
Education
Very few apps offer detailed financial education. Bloom has 80+ finance lessons, styled like Instagram Stories to help teens become financially savvy effortlessly. Bloom also works with Ivy League professors and successful CEOs to produce bite sized video lessons. Teens can test their new skills on Bloom’s “Learn & Earn” center to redeem in-app currencies, participate in reward raffles and even earn stocks from Fortune 500 companies. Parents can monitor their teen’s education progress, accuracy and upcoming learning roadmaps.
Licensing
Bloom Investment Advisers, LLC ("Bloom") is an SEC registered investment advisor. Bloom works with leaders in the investment and financial securities world to deliver a premium and top-quality experience.
Brokerage accounts for Bloom clients are established at Alpaca Securities, LLC (“Alpaca”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of AlpacaDB, Inc. Technology and a third-party SEC registered broker-dealer that is a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (www.finra.org) and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (www.sipc.org).
Cost
Bloom charges $15/month or $60 for 180 days to the parent. The subscription supports Bloom as a business since the company does not believe selling user data and trade commissions is appropriate for any customer, especially a youth audience. The subscription ($15/mo) is effectively less than $0.52/day in exchange for helping your teen build a strong financial foundation, master personal finance and support your teens wealth building journey.
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