Future Finance
Robinhood Maxed Out a Credit Line Last Month as Markets Fell
- The online brokerage has already returned the capital to banks
- Repeat outages spurred investor frustration with upstart firm
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In the throes of frantic market uncertainty, traders using Robinhood Markets Inc. faced the ultimate frustration: Their accounts kept malfunctioning. Behind the scenes, the online brokerage was already bracing for financial strains.
Robinhood drew its entire $200 million credit facility from Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to people familiar with the matter. It made the move just as fears of the coronavirus set off more than two weeks of violent market swings and heavy volume, during which Robinhood’s trading platform suffered three significant outages.