Worked example
Practising on Fineco Bank's numbers
This is an exercise sheet, not a review. We are going to take three things that Fineco Bank publishes — a spread, a ladder of account types and a list of licences — and turn each of them into something you can do arithmetic with. By the end you should be able to repeat the whole exercise on any firm you come across, which is the actual skill being taught.
The figures we are working from
Nothing below is our estimate. Where a firm has not published something, or we could not read it on a source we trust, the box says so instead of guessing — a habit worth copying when you build your own broker notes.
Exercise one — turn the spread into money
Fineco Bank does not publish a EUR/USD spread we were able to verify, so there is no honest arithmetic to do on this page. Do not substitute a number you read on a comparison site: an unverified spread quietly becomes an unverified cost, and then an unverified plan. Use one of the other examples on the practice index for this exercise and come back to this file for the account ladder below.
Exercise two — read the account ladder
Account tiers are a pricing structure dressed as a status ladder. Fineco Bank offers 3 rungs. Read them as a question — what does each rung ask of me, and what does it give back? — rather than as a set of prizes to climb towards.
- Banking accountThe entry rung. Whatever the published spread applies to, it is almost always this one — so this is the rung your arithmetic above describes.
- Trading accountA higher rung usually trades a tighter spread for a commission, a larger deposit, or a status test. Convert both pricing models to money per lot before you decide either is cheaper.
- FX accountA higher rung usually trades a tighter spread for a commission, a larger deposit, or a status test. Convert both pricing models to money per lot before you decide either is cheaper.
Account names as published: Banking account, Trading account, FX account. Platforms listed: Fineco Web/App platform, PowerDesk.
Exercise three — what this licence list means for you
A long licence list is not automatically a good sign. What matters to a beginner is a narrower question: which entity would hold my money, and who supervises that entity? Those are often not the same as the impressive name at the top of the list. Here are Fineco Bank's lines, each with a plain reading.
| Regulator | Entity on the register | Number | What that means for a beginner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of Italy · Italy | FinecoBank Banca Fineco S.p.A. | not verified | a top-tier regulator: compensation scheme, capital rules and a public register you can search yourself |
| FCA · United Kingdom | FinecoBank Banca Fineco S.p.A. | 735612 | a top-tier regulator: compensation scheme, capital rules and a public register you can search yourself |
| PRA · United Kingdom | FinecoBank S.p.A. (UK branch) | not verified | a top-tier regulator: compensation scheme, capital rules and a public register you can search yourself |
3 of these lines are top-tier — held by FinecoBank Banca Fineco S.p.A., FinecoBank Banca Fineco S.p.A., FinecoBank S.p.A. (UK branch). If you are onboarded to a different entity than those, the protections attached to the top-tier line are not yours, however prominently the regulator's initials appear in the marketing. We could not confirm a licence number on 2 lines, which is exactly the kind of gap you should close yourself on the regulator's own register before depositing.
The record behind these numbers
- FinecoBank S.p.A. is an Italian bank enrolled in the Register of Banking Groups at No. 020081, part of the UniCredit group at incorporation and independent from UniCredit since 2019 (Wikipedia/company materials).
- The bank's own UK application form states it is authorised and regulated by the Bank of Italy and Consob, deemed authorised by the UK PRA, and subject to FCA regulation with limited PRA regulation.
- FinecoBank has been listed on Borsa Italiana (FTSE MIB constituent since 2016) since its 2014 IPO. Source: FinecoBank investor relations (finecobank.com) and Borsa Italiana listings.
- The FCA register lists FinecoBank SPA under FRN 735612; a UK branch operates under Companies House establishment number BR021431.
- Fineco launched its Fineco Online brokerage service in 1999.
What we could not verify
The following are unconfirmed and are deliberately left blank rather than estimated: minDeposit not stated on crawled UK pages; maxLeverage not verified on an own spec page; spreadEurusd not verified; segregatedFunds not verified (banking-client protections differ from broker segregation); negativeBalanceProtection not verified in crawled legal text; Italian banking licence/ABI register number not verified on a primary register page. Confidence in this file overall: high. When you build your own notes on a firm, keep a list like this one — the gaps are more useful than the figures, because they tell you what to go and check.
Run the same exercise on another firm
pipdojo.com does not rank brokers, does not award badges and does not tell you where to open an account. This page exists so the arithmetic you learn in the curriculum has real numbers to bite on.