"The days of retail being a fringe player are over," said Eric Krueger, CEO of GTN Americas at Benzinga Fintech Deal Day, during a panel called "Bridging Divides: Connecting Wall Street with Main Street.”

The panel, moderated by Brandis DeSimone, head of data sales at Nasdaq, brought together voices from Public.com, Alpaca, TradeZero and GTN to explore innovation, education and the global rise of retail trading.

See Also: Will AI Become An Assistant Or A Master? Experts Beg To Differ At Benzinga Fintech Conference

Reflecting on his early days at Merrill Lynch, Krueger described how trading has evolved from $100 commissions to instant, no-cost trades on a mobile app. "That friction is gone, and it's made retail a major force in the market."

But the increasing presence of retail investors raised questions about their readiness for sophisticated markets.

On one side, Samuel Nofzinger, head of Brokerage and Crypto at Public.com, argued that learning through mistakes is essential. "We can't be too paternalistic," he said. "Guardrails are important, but you have to let people fail. That's how they grow from chasing meme stocks to building diversified portfolios."

Yoshi Yokokawa, CEO of Alpaca, offered a cautious counterpoint, warning about the dangers of pushing risk too far. "We've seen what happens when innovation outpaces responsibility, like during the crypto boom and bust," he said.

Yokokawa, who worked at Lehman Brothers during the 2008 financial crisis, stressed that fintech companies have a duty to balance access with protection. "We have to ask: how much risk should we be introducing to the average investor?"

Innovation vs. Responsibility

One recurring theme was how to simplify complex financial products without oversimplifying their risks. Nofzinger pointed to Public's approach to fixed-income products as an example.

"Bonds are complicated, but we've repackaged them into something retail investors understand: a yield-focused account," he said. The result was striking — on launch day, Public handled 8% of all U.S. bond trades.

"Offering a new product is great, but making it digestible is where the real work happens," Krueger noted. He warned against overwhelming retail users with overly complex choices. "Retail investors don't wake up thinking, ‘Let me buy some bonds.' They think, ‘Where can I get the best yield?' Simplifying that process is key."

Yokokawa agreed but remained wary of the long-term implications. "When you chase yield, you're pushing the limits," he said. "That's how boom-and-bust cycles happen. We have to remember that retail isn't just numbers — it's people's savings, their futures."

Striking A Balance: Education and Risk

Panelists debated the best approach to educating retail investors without stifling their autonomy. Nofzinger talked about meeting users where they are, including platforms such as TikTok and Meta Platform’s Instagram. "If you're not there, you're invisible to this generation of investors," he said.

Meanwhile, Daniel Pipitone, co-founder and CEO of TradeZero, focused on working with unbiased educators to teach strategies and risk management. He echoed Nofzinger's belief that mistakes are part of the process. "You can't control what people do, and they need room to learn. But platforms need to provide tools that help guide them responsibly."

Krueger added a different perspective, calling for education to be embedded directly into trading platforms. "It's not enough to have a help section buried in a menu. If someone is overtrading after a loss, we need to deliver advice right then and there," he said. "It's about personalization, not one-size-fits-all solutions."

Main Street Is Everywhere

Retail's expansion is not just a U.S. story — it's a global one. Pipitone described how demand for U.S. equities is booming abroad. "Main Street has expanded beyond borders," he said. "People everywhere want to trade Tesla or Nvidia because these brands are part of their lives."

Krueger noted that 90% of trading volumes for GTN's international partners are in U.S. markets, driven by the consistent outperformance of American stocks.

Yet scaling globally isn't easy. "Serving smaller markets means you need incredibly low costs," Yokokawa explained. "That only works if you internalize every part of your operations, from technology to customer acquisition."

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