Funding Reference

Once all account application materials have been received at IB, the application will be reviewed and a decision will be made to either accept or decline the account. An email will be sent to the applicant informing them of the decision. In addition, you may log into Complete Application to view your latest status.

Yes. Here are the currencies that you can use to fund your account:

Not all of the currencies listed above can be used as your base currency. For a list of eligible base currencies, see the Configuring Your Account page.

No, IB does not convert funds but IB customers may convert currencies through the IB Forex trading Network (IDEAL). Please see An Introduction to Forex (FX).

Yes. See IB's Internal Funds Transfers page for instructions and details.

The securities portions of your account is insured for up to $30 million regardless of your country of residency. Excess funds in your commodities account are swept into your securities account at the end of each day. Click here for specifics on your insurance protection.

Your self-selected, Professional or Friends and Family financial advisor can request a withdrawal on your behalf, however the advisor can only use the banking instructions which you have created in Account Management.

To view the latest status of any deposit, withdrawal, internal transfer or position transfer request, visit the Transaction History page in Account Management.

The Automated Customer Account Transfer Service (ACATS) is the National Securities Clearing Corporation's (NSCC) central processing system for the transfer of positions and accounts between brokerage firms that are participants in the NSCC's ACAT program.

The ACAT system would allow you to enter a partial or full transfer request online to move positions and or cash from other ACAT participant firms.

Under normal circumstances, an ACATS transfer should take between four to eight business days. In certain circumstances, such as an attempt to transfer acceptable, no-load mutual fund shares or non-US assets, this process could take longer.

An ACAT can be entered as an initial funding method in an application, but the request will not begin processing until application approval is granted. ACATs can be submitted through the Account Management menu for any existing account.

ACATS transfers are available in Account Management. Select Position Transfers from the Funds Management menu, then select ACATS – US Broker Transfer from the Transfer Method dropdown list. Choose Full or Partial as the type of ACATS transfer, then select the firm from the Source dropdown list. You will need the firm's account number. If you choose Partial as the type of ACATS transfer, you will be prompted to select the assets you want to transfer.

The drop-down list displays Clearing Firms that are participants in the ACATS program. Not all firms are self-clearing. If you do not find your firm on the list, please contact one of their representatives to confirm that they participate in the ACAT system. If yes, ask what firm they clear their transfers through.

Interactive Brokers accepts only products that are available for trading and deemed transferable by the NSCC. Certain products, such as Commodities/Futures, Limited Partnership Units and Restricted Securities are not transferable.

The ACAT system facilitates the transfer of identically titled/typed accounts between participant firms (i.e. John Doe to John Doe, or Jane Doe, Traditional IRA to Jane Doe, Traditional IRA). In certain instances, the delivering firm may make exceptions to validate requests between non-identical titles (i.e. John E. Doe to J. Edward Doe). Contact Funds and Banking at 877-442-2757 for assistance for questions on common acceptable circumstances.

IB receives value on the business day following its processing date for ACH deposits initiated via the IB website. However, an ACH deposit is essentially an electronic check and therefore the originating bank can reverse the transaction and IB's bank account will be debited, same as a check, because the sender has non-sufficient funds, closed the bank account etc. Therefore, IB has implemented a four-business day hold period to protect itself against these reversals.

IB wishes to keep its commissions as low as possible and therefore it avoids preventable losses. We encourage our customers to send funds via bank check or wire if they require immediate availability of funds.

Once you have received your two credits and debit you can log into Account Management and enter them under Home -> Pending requests or Funds Management -> Transaction History -> Bank Instructions.

IB doesn't know when customer checks actually clear. IB has a corporate account and our bank credits corporate accounts based on the expected clearing date of the check. IB's bank uses ABA routing numbers as a proxy to determine how long it will take a check to clear. For example, IB will receive value on a check drawn on a New York bank faster than it will receive value on a check drawn on a California bank.

Check processing speed has improved because of system developments other than Check 21. However, the return check process does not seem to have improved yet. When the maker's bank receives a check for payment it either provides payment or submits notification to the payee's bank that it will not honor the check for payment because of non-sufficient funds, closed account etc. IB's bank receives the notification of a returned check via the Federal Reserve and deducts the funds from IB's bank account since it originally credited IB based on an estimated funds availability schedule (not when the check actually clears). IB then reverses the funds to its customer's IB account. There is no set time frame for returned checks and IB has experienced returned checks up to seven business days.

Before IB implemented the seven-business day hold period, it experienced losses from returned checks. IB wishes to keep its commissions as low as possible and therefore it avoids preventable losses. We encourage our customers to send funds via bank check or wire if they require immediate availability of funds.

IB's bank typically posts incoming wires to IB's bank account within a few minutes. There can be bank posting delays if there is a lot of Fedwire activity for that day.

IB retrieves incoming wires to its bank accounts every 15 minutes during business hours and, if there is match to a deposit notification, our system automatically posts the funds to the customer's account. IB posting delays to customers' IB accounts can occur because:

• the customer didn't submit a deposit notification
• the sending bank improperly formatted the wire (and therefore customer identifiers do not appear on IB's bank reports)
• the sending bank misspelled the customer's name or incorrectly input other customer identifiers so an automatic match to the deposit notification cannot occur
• IB's bank didn't display the customer identifiers on its bank reporting system (we then ask our bank for additional details on the incoming wire)

If IB can't identify the customer, then IB will return the funds to the sending bank.

Our website recognizes Interactive Brokers ("IB") customers vs Interactive Brokers Canada ("IBC") customers and prevents IB customers from initiating EFT transactions and IBC customers from initiating ACH transactions. The reason why is that the Investment Dealers Association of Canada ("IDA") mandates that IBC customer cash must be deposited to/disbursed from IBC bank accounts so ACH transactions are mapped to IB bank accounts and EFT transactions are mapped to IBC bank accounts.

IB does not accept physical stock certificates.