Regulation (EU) 2024/791 (the MiFIR review) banned payment for order flow, with a transitional period only for the Member States that allowed it, capped at June 30, 2026. That deadline has now passed: in the EU, the model is finished. It is time to rethink revenue, execution and client acquisition.
Does your investment app depend on PFOF? Let’s talk now
Tell us about your revenue model and how you execute orders, and we will come back to you with a plan to rebuild it on solid regulatory ground.
From pricing to the onboarding screen: what needs redesigning when order flow revenue disappears and the supervisor raises the bar.
Replacing PFOF is not just raising a fee: it means reorganizing the business. We analyze explicit commissions, securities lending, interest-bearing accounts and recurring paid services, and we test each line against MiFID II before the supervisor does.
Without the PFOF conflict, the question changes: where do you execute and why? We redesign your best execution policy, your venue selection and the execution quality evidence that underpins your whole case before the CNMV.
Your client base is overwhelmingly retail: correct classification and the protections that come with it, with no shortcuts in onboarding.
Campaigns, promotions and referrals under the financial advertising rules: growth, yes, but compliant.
The Retail Investment Strategy, under negotiation, targets value for money and inducements: read it before you set your pricing.
Reception, transmission and execution of orders: the securities broker (agencia de valores) is the natural vehicle for many investment apps.
The end of payment for order flow does not hit everyone equally. Four real situations among platforms that serve Spanish clients.
“Most of our income statement came from selling order flow. With the ban now fully in force, every month without a new model is a month of burning cash: redesigning our pricing stopped being a project and became the project.”
“We are launching now and we see it as an advantage: we carry neither a banned model nor the transition. We are building from day one on transparent commissions and on execution we can explain to the client and to the supervisor.”
“For years we competed against apps that boasted of being free thanks to PFOF. Now that the playing field is level, our bet is to prove execution quality with data: it is the sales conversation we always wanted to have.”
“We operate in several countries under a passport. The ban is EU-wide and the transitional period depended on each Member State: we had to check country by country when our revenue would end and synchronize the migration of the model.”
The 2024 MiFIR review moved the three core pieces of the neobroker model. This is where the playing field really stands today.
PFOF is banned: Regulation (EU) 2024/791 prohibited receiving payments from third parties for routing client order flow to them. The transitional period, only for the Member States that allowed it, was capped at June 30, 2026: now that the deadline has passed, there is no legal route left for that revenue in the EU.
Best execution comes out stronger: with the conflict of being paid by the execution venue gone, the MiFID II Art. 27 obligation takes center stage. The same review removed the RTS 28 reports, but that eliminates a form, not the obligation: you must be able to prove execution quality with your own data.
Gamification and digital acquisition under scrutiny: confetti after every order, “most bought” lists, constant push notifications and aggressive referral schemes are on the European supervisory radar, and the Retail Investment Strategy, under negotiation, directly targets digital techniques used to influence retail investors.
| Practice | Regulatory status | Impact on the model |
|---|---|---|
| Payment for order flow | Banned by Regulation (EU) 2024/791; national transitional period ended no later than June 30, 2026 | Revenue line down to zero: it must be replaced with explicit commissions and new sources, and you must check that no residual agreement keeps it alive |
| Best execution | Obligation in force and strengthened (MiFID II Art. 27); the RTS 28 reports were removed by the 2024 review | Fewer forms, more substance: a real execution policy, a justified venue selection and your own execution quality data |
| Gamification and digital acquisition | Under supervisory scrutiny; the Retail Investment Strategy (under negotiation) targets these practices | Review of UX, promotions and referrals: growing is still legal, but pushing clients to overtrade is starting to cost you |
We audit your real dependence on order flow, design the new revenue mix and how it fits under MiFID II, rebuild your best execution policy with evidence and review your digital acquisition before the supervisor does. A new model and a clean file.
It is the payment an intermediary receives from a third party—typically an execution venue or a market maker—for routing its clients’ orders to that third party. It was the engine of “zero commissions”: the client paid no visible commission because the broker was paid on the other side.
Its structural problem is the conflict of interest: if the party that executes pays you, your incentive is to send the order to whoever pays you, not necessarily to whoever executes best for the client.
Yes. Regulation (EU) 2024/791, the MiFIR review, banned PFOF. A transitional regime was provided only for the Member States that had been allowing it, with a deadline of June 30, 2026.
That deadline has now passed: as of today, the model is finished throughout the EU. If your platform keeps agreements that in practice amount to being paid for order flow, you do not have a question of interpretation: you have a compliance problem to fix immediately.
The routes we are seeing in the market, always to be checked case by case against MiFID II:
The common rule: each new line must be born with its conflicts analysis and its client disclosures already settled.
What MiFID II Art. 27 always required, but without the anesthetic of PFOF: taking all sufficient steps to obtain the best possible result for the client, with a real execution policy and a venue selection you can justify.
The 2024 review removed the RTS 28 reports, so a formal exercise disappears, not the underlying obligation: you need your own execution quality data and documented periodic reviews. We cover this in best execution of orders.
There is no general ban on gamification, but there is growing scrutiny of techniques that push clients to trade more or take on more risk: celebrations after every order, rankings of “hot” stocks, notifications that create urgency.
The Retail Investment Strategy, under negotiation, directly targets these practices. Our practical advice: audit your UX as if it were advertising—because functionally it is—and document that the design informs and does not manipulate.
It is doubly regulated ground. Advertising of investment products follows the CNMV framework (Circular 2/2020), and in June 2026 the CNMV published guidance on and for finfluencers, setting out when content is a marketing communication, when it is an investment recommendation and when it is advice.
If you pay content creators or run referral programs, you need contracts, disclaimers and control over the messages. We cover this in advertising of financial products and in finfluencers.
It depends on the services: receiving and transmitting orders, executing them or holding client positions in custody are reserved investment services that typically point to a securities broker (agencia de valores) or a broker-dealer (sociedad de valores), or else to operating in Spain under an EU passport from another EU firm.
With a client base that is almost always retail, client classification and its protections—appropriateness, cost disclosure, warnings—are part of the core of the model, not an appendix.
The visible price may go up and the client may still come out ahead: the “free” of PFOF was paid for with potentially worse execution quality, a real but invisible cost. The new playing field rewards those who execute well and say so clearly.
For the neobroker, the challenge is both narrative and operational: explaining the explicit price with transparent cost disclosure and backing it with execution data that stands up to comparison. Those who manage it will turn regulation into a selling point.
Migrating from a PFOF-based model to one built on explicit revenue touches pricing, contracts, technology and marketing. This is the order that avoids breaking anything along the way.
We quantify the real dependence on order flow, review all agreements with execution venues and counterparties for residual or disguised PFOF, and measure the revenue gap to be filled.
We build the replacement model—explicit commissions, securities lending with consents, interest-bearing accounts, premium services—and test each line against conflicts of interest, inducements and client disclosure.
We rebuild the best execution policy with its quality evidence, review UX, promotions and the influencer program, and leave the complete file ready for the supervisor’s first question.
We can handle the full transformation with you: start with best execution of orders, review your advertising of financial products and rely on our fintech regulation team for the revenue model.
Nine terms to understand the regulatory conversation ahead: the ones that disappear, the ones that get stronger and the ones that will decide your income statement.
Payments from third parties for routing client orders to them. Banned by Regulation (EU) 2024/791; transitional period ended on June 30, 2026.
An app-first, low-cost investment platform with a mass retail client base. Its challenge: making money without order flow.
The 2024 MiFIR review, together with Directive (EU) 2024/790: it bans PFOF and adjusts market transparency.
The MiFID II Art. 27 obligation to execute orders seeking the best result for the client, with a policy and evidence.
Public reports on execution venues, removed by the 2024 review. The form goes; the underlying obligation stays.
A visible fee per trade or subscription that replaces the hidden PFOF revenue. It requires flawless cost disclosure.
Temporarily lending client securities in exchange for a fee: possible only with express consent and clear terms.
Paying interest on client balances as a loyalty and revenue tool, with full transparency on the terms.
Game mechanics in an investment app. Under scrutiny when they encourage excessive trading or risks the client did not seek.
No revenue, direct or disguised, linked to routing order flow to third parties after the end of the transitional period.
Current contracts reviewed, termination addenda, a revenue map by counterparty and internal verification of the cut-off.
A real execution policy, venue selection justified by quality and periodic reviews with consequences.
Approved policy, comparative venue analysis, execution quality metrics and review minutes recording decisions.
Clients informed ex ante and ex post of all the costs of the new service, with no hidden revenue replacing PFOF.
Published fee schedule, ex ante and ex post cost disclosure, and archived notices of pricing changes.
Securities lending, interest-bearing accounts or premium services with their conflicts analysis and consents in place.
Opinions on how each line fits the rules, express client consents and an updated conflicts register.
Compliant advertising, gamification that does not encourage overtrading and a controlled influencer and referral program.
Campaign approval workflow, documented UX audit, contracts with creators and a register of published pieces.
Five symptoms of a model that has not completed the transition. Any one of them is the first thing a supervisory review will find.
The end of PFOF is only one piece: the European retail investor protection agenda, digital advertising and MiFID conduct obligations surround the whole model. These pages complete the picture.
Value for money, inducements and digital practices: the European negotiation that will shape the next decade of retail brokerage.
The CNMV’s June 2026 guidance draws the lines between advertising, recommendations and advice in creator content.
Ex ante, ex post and the cumulative effect on returns: the discipline that legitimizes your new explicit pricing.
The assessment for non-advised services on complex products: an everyday task for any execution platform.
If your platform is launching now, start with the license: a securities broker (agencia de valores) or a passport from another EU firm, with client classification properly in place. And if you hold client positions in custody or want to monetize them through securities lending, first read safeguarding of financial instruments.
Tell us how your neobroker makes money today and we will help you redesign the model: explicit pricing, new revenue lines and best execution you can prove.
Neobrokers built “investing for free” on an invisible source of revenue: payment for order flow (PFOF), the payments market makers and execution venues make to receive client orders. That engine has been switched off by the EU legislator: Regulation (EU) 2024/791, the MiFIR review, banned PFOF and granted a transitional period only to the Member States that allowed it, with a deadline of June 30, 2026. Now that the deadline has passed, the model is finished in the EU, and investment apps face rebuilding three pillars at once: revenue, execution and client acquisition.
PFOF contains a structural conflict: if the broker is paid by the venue that executes, its incentive when routing orders is no longer aligned with the client’s best result. The European response was the ban in the 2024 MiFIR review, with the temporary safety valve of the national transitional period until June 30, 2026 at the latest. The practical consequence today is binary: no agreement in force may remunerate the routing of order flow, whatever it is called. The first task for any platform is forensic: review contracts with counterparties and check that no residual PFOF survives under creative labels.
The market is migrating toward a recognizable mix: explicit commissions (per trade or by subscription), securities lending on client positions (which requires, among other conditions, express consent and ties in directly with the asset safeguarding rules), interest-bearing accounts that monetize cash transparently, and premium data and feature services. None of these lines is problematic per se; all of them require a prior analysis of conflicts, inducements and cost disclosure. The typical mistake is to design pricing in the finance team and show it to compliance in launch week.
With PFOF gone, best execution under MiFID II Art. 27 becomes the central obligation of an execution broker. The 2024 review removed the RTS 28 reports, which some read as a relaxation: it is the opposite. The formal exercise of publishing tables nobody read goes away, and the underlying requirement remains: a real execution policy, venue selection justified by quality and your own data that demonstrates results, reviewed periodically and with consequences. For a neobroker that executes well, this is a commercial opportunity: for the first time, execution quality can be the selling point against a “free” that no longer exists.
The third front is digital acquisition. The mechanics that push people to trade—celebrations, rankings of hot stocks, urgency notifications—are under European scrutiny, and the Retail Investment Strategy, still under negotiation, directly targets digital techniques used to influence retail investors. In Spain, investment advertising is governed by the CNMV framework, and the June 2026 guidance on finfluencers sets the boundaries for paid content. Our advice to platforms is to treat UX and marketing as part of the regulatory file: audit them, document them and be able to explain each mechanic with retail client protection as the yardstick. We provide end-to-end support through our fintech regulation practice.
Key legislation, linked to the official text:
Legislation and links reviewed in .