Hoodless Brennan co-founder John Brennan has joined with Share Crazy founder Alan Green to launch a new trading service.

TradersOwn.com will offer spreadbetting, sharedealing and CFD trading but its customers will be awarded with an equity stake in the business.

Under the company’s Members Equity Participation Scheme, members earn free equity units that are converted into shares in the holding company Traders Own plc.

Active traders earn a free equity unit with each equity, ISA, CFD or spreadbetting trade and members receive two free equity units for every member they introduce to the service.

Signing up to the service alone and giving permission to receive marketing emails and correspondence will earn members their first equity unit.

Speaking exclusively to What Investment, founder and chief executive Alan Green said combining social media with an online trading platform is a strong proposition, particularly when the added incentive of an equity stake is added.

He explained, ‘We are targeting longer-term investors from the Facebook generation. We thought if we could put something in front of them but with the added advantage of a share trading.

‘So far, it has been a soft launch and we are going from there. We will be starting some marketing activity in April.’ Green said that Traders Own is establishing a new model in share ownership in trading platforms.

He said, ‘This is the real share-owning democracy. We are bringing all the personal and business interactivity of Facebook and Linked In together in one site but giving people a personal stake in this community that we are building.

‘We have believed for some years that investors and traders should get more out of the trading systems they spend so much time using.

'They use the trading platforms available from brokers and institutions and rarely have an opportunity to provide feedback.’