XTB will
spend more on marketing in Germany this year than at home in Poland, Chief
Executive Omar Arnaout said. The Warsaw-listed broker is pushing into the home
turf of Trade Republic, the German neobroker that walked into Poland last year.
Arnaout,
speaking to Polish outlet Bankier.pl,
framed the heavier German spend as brand-building in a market where XTB is
still little known. He said the amount stays well below what larger global
rivals lay out.
The contest
now runs in two directions. Trade Republic entered Poland in September 2025, its first market outside the
eurozone, arriving with more than 10 million customers across 18 European
markets and about €150 billion in assets.
Arnaout
said XTB will “spend more on marketing in Germany than in Poland”
this year, building its name in the home market of the rival that is now
competing with it in Warsaw.
The push
sits inside a wider goal of becoming the default investing app for European
retail clients, an aim that depends on markets beyond Poland.
Contents
Poland Pays the Bills,
Western Europe Drives the Growth
XTB does
not break out Germany on its own. Poland is the only country it isolates in its
accounts, at 54.4% of group revenue in 2025, while Germany sits inside a
Western Europe region that also covers France, Spain and Portugal.
That region
is where the figures are moving fastest. Western Europe revenue rose 8.9% to
PLN 387.4 million in 2025, active clients there climbed to about 301,000, a
quarter of the retail base, and retail volume in lots jumped 74.5%.
XTB’s record first quarter ran largely on
Central and Eastern Europe, which delivered 71% of group revenue, leaving the western markets as
the obvious place to add scale.
The
marketing tilt feeds a hard number. Arnaout wants 250,000 to 290,000 new
clients a quarter in 2026, roughly a million in a year, with promotional
spending up about 50%.
XTB added
more than 860,000 clients in 2025 and ended the year above 2 million globally,
but it needed more than two decades to
reach its first million domestic accounts.
Germany Is Crowded Before
XTB Arrives
Germany is
among the hardest neobroker markets in Europe to break into. Trade Republic anchors it from home with bonds, ETFs and
private equity access from as little as €1, while Munich’s Scalable Capital
charges a €2.99 monthly subscription.
Both built
their businesses on payment for order flow, a practice the EU bans from June 30, 2026, pushing German platforms to find
fresh income before the cutoff.
XTB’s wedge
into the market is options. The broker launched buy-only options in Germany
and Spain in April 2026, covering 110 US-listed stocks and ETFs, and Jens Chrzanowski, who runs
its German branch, casts the firm as a “super app” that bundles
investing, savings and payments rather than a single-purpose broker.
It will not
have the country to itself. CMC Markets moved into Germany’s certificates
market in May as
BaFin weighs tighter rules, and Robinhood has pushed venture funds and crypto
across the continent.
Regulatory Friction at
Home Shapes the Push Abroad
The
expansion runs against a tense backdrop in Poland. KNF fined XTB PLN 20 million ($5.5
million) over MiFID II breaches in its client onboarding, a penalty disclosed in April that the broker is contesting through a
reconsideration request.
XTB says KNF vice-chairman Dariusz Adamski
the questionnaire and onboarding flow at issue have already been changed.
The
regulator is also widening a review of how CFDs are
sold. “The
capital market cannot function like gambling,” KNF vice-chairman Dariusz
Adamski said, signaling it wants to stop firms moving clients from simple
products toward complex ones.
Arnaout
rejected the idea that XTB does any such steering. He said 80% of new clients
start with stocks and ETFs, that only 13.5% of them have ever placed a CFD
trade, and that clients who fail the knowledge test cannot buy the product at
all. He also argued that Polish firms face an uneven field, noting XTB cannot
offer crypto to local clients while foreign rivals can.
XTB has now
written options into its Polish
terms of service,
effective June 29, closing the gap that left its home market the last to get
the product. The broker has not said when Polish clients will actually be able
to trade it.
With the domestic account engine showing
signs of cooling,
Germany and the rest of Western Europe look set to carry more of the weight
behind XTB’s next million clients.
XTB will
spend more on marketing in Germany this year than at home in Poland, Chief
Executive Omar Arnaout said. The Warsaw-listed broker is pushing into the home
turf of Trade Republic, the German neobroker that walked into Poland last year.
Arnaout,
speaking to Polish outlet Bankier.pl,
framed the heavier German spend as brand-building in a market where XTB is
still little known. He said the amount stays well below what larger global
rivals lay out.
The contest
now runs in two directions. Trade Republic entered Poland in September 2025, its first market outside the
eurozone, arriving with more than 10 million customers across 18 European
markets and about €150 billion in assets.
Arnaout
said XTB will “spend more on marketing in Germany than in Poland”
this year, building its name in the home market of the rival that is now
competing with it in Warsaw.
The push
sits inside a wider goal of becoming the default investing app for European
retail clients, an aim that depends on markets beyond Poland.
Poland Pays the Bills,
Western Europe Drives the Growth
XTB does
not break out Germany on its own. Poland is the only country it isolates in its
accounts, at 54.4% of group revenue in 2025, while Germany sits inside a
Western Europe region that also covers France, Spain and Portugal.
That region
is where the figures are moving fastest. Western Europe revenue rose 8.9% to
PLN 387.4 million in 2025, active clients there climbed to about 301,000, a
quarter of the retail base, and retail volume in lots jumped 74.5%.
XTB’s record first quarter ran largely on
Central and Eastern Europe, which delivered 71% of group revenue, leaving the western markets as
the obvious place to add scale.
The
marketing tilt feeds a hard number. Arnaout wants 250,000 to 290,000 new
clients a quarter in 2026, roughly a million in a year, with promotional
spending up about 50%.
XTB added
more than 860,000 clients in 2025 and ended the year above 2 million globally,
but it needed more than two decades to
reach its first million domestic accounts.
Germany Is Crowded Before
XTB Arrives
Germany is
among the hardest neobroker markets in Europe to break into. Trade Republic anchors it from home with bonds, ETFs and
private equity access from as little as €1, while Munich’s Scalable Capital
charges a €2.99 monthly subscription.
Both built
their businesses on payment for order flow, a practice the EU bans from June 30, 2026, pushing German platforms to find
fresh income before the cutoff.
XTB’s wedge
into the market is options. The broker launched buy-only options in Germany
and Spain in April 2026, covering 110 US-listed stocks and ETFs, and Jens Chrzanowski, who runs
its German branch, casts the firm as a “super app” that bundles
investing, savings and payments rather than a single-purpose broker.
It will not
have the country to itself. CMC Markets moved into Germany’s certificates
market in May as
BaFin weighs tighter rules, and Robinhood has pushed venture funds and crypto
across the continent.
Regulatory Friction at
Home Shapes the Push Abroad
The
expansion runs against a tense backdrop in Poland. KNF fined XTB PLN 20 million ($5.5
million) over MiFID II breaches in its client onboarding, a penalty disclosed in April that the broker is contesting through a
reconsideration request.
XTB says KNF vice-chairman Dariusz Adamski
the questionnaire and onboarding flow at issue have already been changed.
The
regulator is also widening a review of how CFDs are
sold. “The
capital market cannot function like gambling,” KNF vice-chairman Dariusz
Adamski said, signaling it wants to stop firms moving clients from simple
products toward complex ones.
Arnaout
rejected the idea that XTB does any such steering. He said 80% of new clients
start with stocks and ETFs, that only 13.5% of them have ever placed a CFD
trade, and that clients who fail the knowledge test cannot buy the product at
all. He also argued that Polish firms face an uneven field, noting XTB cannot
offer crypto to local clients while foreign rivals can.
XTB has now
written options into its Polish
terms of service,
effective June 29, closing the gap that left its home market the last to get
the product. The broker has not said when Polish clients will actually be able
to trade it.
With the domestic account engine showing
signs of cooling,
Germany and the rest of Western Europe look set to carry more of the weight
behind XTB’s next million clients.
SOURCE LINK : Trade Republic Came for Poland. Now XTB Comes for Germany: CEO Vowing to “Spend More” There Than Home
