Brokerage as a service: securities trading through an API
Brokerage as a service is a model in which a licensed securities firm runs order execution, custody and settlement for another company, and that company sells investing to its own customers in its own app. A neobank, a savings app or a bank without its own securities back office reaches stocks, ETFs and funds through one API. Dated events on the topic are in the calendar below.
How brokerage as a service works
The partner owns the customer, the brand and the app. The provider owns the regulated part behind them. lemon.markets in Berlin, a BaFin-licensed investment firm, lists the layers on its website: clearing, execution, compliance, operations and custody, reached through a single API. Such a provider in turn works with other institutions: at the launch of lemon.markets, Finance Magnates named BNP Paribas as custodian, Deutsche Bank for payments to end users and Tradegate for access to the exchange.
The model is the securities version of crypto as a service, where a specialist runs custody and trading of crypto assets for a bank. Both rely on the same split: the customer interface stays with the brand, and the license and the back office stay with the provider.
Whose license: tied agent or the provider's umbrella
Selling securities to retail customers needs a permission from BaFin. A partner without one can work under the provider's license. Solarisbank used this route in its brokerage offer for the neobroker fina: the partners performed investment brokerage as tied agents of Solarisbank, through one API, with stocks, ETFs, funds and ETF savings plans. lemon.markets holds its own license under the German Securities Institutions Act, covering principal broking, portfolio management, safekeeping and investment broking, and offers its partners omnibus, BPO and fully disclosed models.
The rules for neobrokers and their order flow are on Finance Loop's page on neobrokers in Germany.
Cloud, APIs and fractional shares
Upvest, supervised by BaFin and by the UK's FCA, describes end-to-end investment infrastructure across brokerage, settlement and custody, delivered through a cloud-native investment API, and names N26, Revolut, bunq and DKB among its clients. lemon.markets, according to dwpbank, supports fractional trading and real-time processing for ETFs, shares and funds.
Crypto is the next asset class on these platforms. Upvest lists crypto as coming soon, and dwpbank, the owner of lemon.markets, offers bitcoin and ether to banks and savings banks through its separate platform wpNex.
Banks enter the market: dwpbank and lemon.markets
dwpbank processes securities for about 1,000 German banks and savings banks. In 2025 it bought lemon.markets to add a neobrokerage solution to its full-custody service for banks, as its press release explains (in German). lemon.markets supplies the lean custody account for neobrokers, and dwpbank's WP3 platform the global custody account for banks. Both brands stay on the market, so a fintech can buy brokerage as a service from the same group that runs the securities business of most German savings banks.
Upcoming fintech and wealthtech events
Investment & Digital Assets
Payments & Digital Money
What is brokerage as a service?
A model in which a licensed provider runs the securities business behind an app, from execution to custody, and the app or bank offers investing under its own brand. The connection runs through an API.
Is brokerage as a service the same as a white label broker?
Close to it. A white label broker usually means a finished trading front end under the buyer's brand. In brokerage as a service the partner builds its own front end and the provider supplies the regulated back end through an API.
Does a partner need its own license?
Not always. A partner can work as tied agent under the provider's license, as fina did under Solarisbank, or use a provider such as lemon.markets that holds its own license as an investment firm.
Brokerage as a service and Finance Loop
Finance Loop covers brokerage infrastructure, neobrokers and the APIs behind investment apps in its Investment & Digital Assets track. Finance Loop's pages on dwpbank and lemon.markets describe a German group that runs securities processing for banks and brokerage as a service for fintechs.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the adoption of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, digital payments, cloud and blockchain solutions. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.