Robinhood Financial to pay $7.5M in Mass. settlement
By 
Kyle Brasseur2024-01-18T20:54:00
Online stock trading platform and broker-dealer Robinhood Financial agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine as part of a settlement with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts addressing claims related to “gamification” of its platform and cybersecurity issues that lent to a 2021 data breach.
The agreement, announced Thursday, resolves administrative complaints filed against Robinhood in 2020 and 2021. The company began facing a surge of scrutiny regarding its practices early on during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the platform’s popularity increased.
Massachusetts securities regulators took issue with game-like features on the Robinhood platform to encourage engagement, including the use of confetti animations, digital scratch tickets, and free stock rewards. It faulted the company for not implementing procedures reasonably designed to supervise the features in a manner necessary to protect customers.
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