Trii

Private

Colombia's first commission-free stock investment app, allowing Colombians to invest in US equities, ETFs, and local stocks with no minimum investment and no trading fees.

Bogotá, Colombia | Investment Platform | Est. 2020 | Website

At a Glance

Strength

Removing the minimum investment barrier for Colombian retail investors was a genuine innovation — the BVC historically required minimums and broker accounts that effectively excluded anyone who wasn't upper-middle class.

Challenge

The commission-free model requires alternative revenue streams (FX spread on USD conversions, premium subscriptions, securities lending) that are less transparent to users and harder to scale than simple trading fees.

Opportunity

Complementary pension savings products (voluntary pension contributions) would capture a higher-value, longer-duration customer relationship from the same young professional demographic, with meaningful average balance potential.

The Investment Access Gap

For most of its history, investing in Colombian equities or international stocks was practically inaccessible to ordinary Colombians. The Bolsa de Valores de Colombia (BVC) required brokerage accounts with minimum balances, trading fees that made small investments economically irrational, and an onboarding process built for institutional investors. International stocks were even harder to access — requiring dollar accounts, international wire transfers, and relationships with foreign brokers that the vast majority of Colombians simply did not have. Trii launched in 2020 to dismantle these barriers, one by one.

Commission-Free Trading

Trii's founding proposition was simple and borrowed directly from the Robinhood playbook: zero trading commissions, no account minimums, and a mobile-first interface designed for people who have never held a stock before. The zero-commission model was not a pricing strategy — it was a product feature. By eliminating the per-trade cost, Trii removed the psychological barrier that made retail investors reluctant to make small, incremental purchases. A user can invest COP 10,000 in a US ETF without worrying that the transaction fee will consume a meaningful percentage of the position.

Access to US Markets

The most commercially powerful feature on Trii's platform is access to US equities and ETFs. Through a partnership with DriveWealth — a US-regulated broker-dealer that provides fractional share infrastructure for fintech platforms globally — Trii enables Colombian retail investors to buy fractional shares of any NYSE or NASDAQ-listed security, denominated in Colombian pesos. The FX conversion happens automatically, the regulatory compliance sits with DriveWealth on the US side, and the user experience remains within the Trii app. For a Colombian investor who wants S&P 500 exposure without the complexity of opening a US brokerage account, this is a genuinely attractive offer.

Revenue Model

Commission-free does not mean free-to-operate. Trii generates revenue primarily through the foreign exchange spread applied when users convert pesos to dollars for US stock purchases — a markup on the prevailing interbank rate that is disclosed but not prominently featured. Premium subscription tiers, offering features like advanced charting, additional research, and faster execution, represent a secondary revenue stream. The economics are similar to other zero-commission brokers globally: high user count is required to generate meaningful revenue from spread-based income, which creates pressure to grow the registered user base aggressively before focusing on monetization depth.

Market Education Challenge

Trii's most significant non-competitive challenge is also its most important long-term strategic investment: financial education. Colombia has one of the lowest retail investor participation rates in Latin America, and a large share of the population that has never considered investing in equities. Trii has built content, in-app tutorials, and social investment features designed to lower the psychological barrier to first investment and sustain engagement over time. This education investment does not generate immediate revenue, but it creates the market Trii needs to exist in — a Colombia where millions of retail investors are actively managing diversified portfolios.

Editorial Assessment

The Good, The Bad & Opportunities

The Good

Removing the minimum investment barrier for Colombian retail investors was a genuine innovation — the BVC historically required minimums and broker accounts that effectively excluded anyone who wasn't upper-middle class.
Access to US equities and ETFs is the product's most powerful hook: offering exposure to Apple, Tesla, and S&P 500 index funds in Colombian pesos, via an app, addresses a real demand that traditional brokers served poorly.
Commission-free trading changes the behavior of retail investors in documented ways — smaller, more frequent investments, greater diversification across more securities — all of which benefit long-term wealth building.

The Challenge

The commission-free model requires alternative revenue streams (FX spread on USD conversions, premium subscriptions, securities lending) that are less transparent to users and harder to scale than simple trading fees.
Financial literacy in Colombia is low, and retail investors entering equity markets for the first time are exposed to volatility they may not be prepared for — a bad market cycle early in a platform's life can destroy user trust and cause mass churn.
The Robinhood playbook — democratize investing, grow user base, monetize through order flow and premium features — has faced serious scrutiny globally; Colombian regulators may apply similar pressure as Trii scales.
A significant market downturn would test whether Trii's user base is investing with genuine conviction or chasing momentum — and the answer to that question would determine whether the platform retains users or loses them exactly when market conditions favor long-term accumulation.

Opportunities

Complementary pension savings products (voluntary pension contributions) would capture a higher-value, longer-duration customer relationship from the same young professional demographic, with meaningful average balance potential.
A B2B white-label investment platform licensed to neobanks and digital wallets that want to offer investment products without building brokerage infrastructure would open a recurring SaaS revenue stream beyond the retail customer base.
Crypto trading integration — clearly delineated from the regulated securities offering — would capture the speculative demand of Trii's demographic within a regulated framework, preventing those users from migrating to unregulated exchanges.
Financial education monetization through certification programs, curated investment research, and premium content would convert Trii's educational investment into direct revenue while building the financial literacy that drives long-term platform engagement.

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