Upvest vs DriveWealth
Upvest is a European alternative to DriveWealth — same payments & finance use case, built under EU data-protection law.
By the EU Alternatives team Last updated
BaFin-regulated embedded brokerage APIs for stocks, ETFs and funds with fractional-share settlement, tax reporting and custody under German investor-protection rules.
- Jurisdiction
- EU / EEA
- GDPR by default
- Yes
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- No
- Open source
- No
- Free tier
- No
DriveWealth — a non-EU product.
- Jurisdiction
- US
- GDPR by default
- Requires DPA + TIA
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- Yes
About Upvest
Upvest is a Berlin-based investment infrastructure provider offering embedded brokerage, custody and settlement APIs that let fintechs, banks and neobanks launch stock, ETF and fund investing products without building a broker-dealer from scratch. Founded in 2017 and licensed by BaFin, it operates as a regulated German investment firm covering the entire EU.
The platform pairs a single Investment API with direct connections to European and US exchanges, real-time fractional-share settlement, tax reporting, corporate-actions handling and compliance workflows. Partners integrate trading, custody and reporting in weeks rather than the years required to build or acquire a brokerage licence.
Key benefits:
- Embedded brokerage API for stocks, ETFs and funds across EU and US markets
- Fractional-share trading with real-time cash and instrument settlement
- Custody and safekeeping under German BaFin oversight and EU investor protection
- Tax reporting and statements generated automatically for end customers
- Corporate-actions and dividend handling abstracted from partner code
- KYC, AML and suitability workflows available through the same API
- Direct exchange connectivity keeping execution costs low and transparent
Upvest is headquartered in Berlin, Germany, licensed by BaFin as an investment firm under MiFID II and covered by the German investor compensation scheme EdW. All customer assets and data are held in German infrastructure under GDPR and the BDSG, with ISO 27001-aligned operations and SCCs for any non-EU partner.
Trusted by N26, bunq, Revolut and other European fintechs, Upvest is the reference choice for product teams that want to embed investing inside their app with a fully regulated, BaFin-supervised European partner.
Why choose Upvest over DriveWealth?
The decisive argument is data jurisdiction. DriveWealth is headquartered in US, which means personal data processed through it can be subject to non-EU legal regimes — the US CLOUD Act, FISA 702, or similar laws depending on the provider. After the 2020 Schrems II ruling, EU organisations must carry out a transfer impact assessment for every such data flow.
Upvest removes that overhead. As a Germany-based provider, it operates natively under GDPR, and data stays inside the EU/EEA by default. For regulated sectors — health, public administration, finance — that's not a nice-to-have but a requirement. For everyone else, it's concentration-risk insurance: you avoid depending on a single non-EU jurisdiction that can change the rules without warning.