Robinhood has informed individuals it is calling off its plans to expand to the UK market.
Robinhood has gained widespread popularity as an app that makes it easy to trade stocks. At the same time, it has experienced its fair share of growing pains and controversy.
The service has experienced multiple outages, some of which cost the company goodwill from its users. In some cases, individuals were unable to make trades on some of the busiest days of the market. Even worse, a 20 year-old student apparently committed suicide after seeing a negative balance of $730,000.
Amid these issues, not to mention the problems the pandemic has caused, CNN is reporting that Robinhood has sent out an email informing individuals on a waitlist that it is putting its plans on hold.
“The world has changed a lot over the past several months and we’re adapting with it,” read the email.. “On a company level, we’ve come to recognize that our efforts are currently best spent on strengthening our core business in the US and making further investments in our foundational systems.”
Robinhood’s problems illustrate the challenges companies face trying to change the status quo in well-established industries, especially in the financial sector.