Early Skype Investor Launches Run at Online Brokerages with Zero Commission Trading.

Morten Lund, today announced that his latest venture Zecco.com will be going head to head with brokerage industry giants like E*trade and Charles Schwab by offering zero commission trading.

The time is ripe for a disruptive approach aimed at the US brokerage industry. There is absolutely no reason consumers should accept paying anywhere from $10 to $20 for a service that is easy to provide at no charge at all

Since the arrival of online brokerages in the early 1990’s aggressive competition have helped reduce commissions from an initial high of $40. But while competition remains fierce massive customer acquisition costs makes it difficult for the industries larger players to reduce cost further.

The big guys need the commission to keep their marketing machine going. The actual cost of a trade is around $2 but if you spend $500 or more per customer in marketing costs and run your business on old legacy systems, you need all the revenue you can get!

Zecco's model is different. They run a lean operation, use the latest technology and rely entirely on word of mouth, guerilla marketing, viral campaigns and public relations to get the message out. As a result they can look at the $2 per trade as the cost of doing business – and still turn a tidy profit

The introduction of zero commission trading is expected to create a major upheaval within the financial industry and force the major brokerages to respond quickly – but in a sense they are caught between a rock and a hard place. Take E*Trade as an example. They will be looking at an annual loss of several hundred million of they decide to do away with commissions. Not a pleasant thought for a publicly traded company.

The disruptive business model offered by Zecco.com is further augmented by a website that blends financial blogging, discussion forums, financial news updated and trading into a seamless web 2.0 experience.

Think of Zecco.com as the intersection where online brokerage meets Yahoo Finance and Myspace. Do you think investors want to share ideas and opinions? You bet! So, Zecco is offering not just free trading but also free blogging, free forums and the chance to connect and share with other investors and netizens. Hell Zecco even offers to share advertising revenue with users who blog on the site.