IB Universal Account®

IB Universal Account®

Trade multiple products around the world from a single account.
Our Universal Account offers traders these advantages:
  • Trade stocks, options, futures, Forex, bonds and funds all from the same Trader Workstation screen, and your transaction history and positions are all reported on a single statement.
  • Trade around the world without having to open multiple accounts in different countries.
  • Trade securities and futures in a single account. Many brokers require you to create separate non-linked accounts for securities and futures trading. IB's Universal Account links your securities and commodities account segments in one account.
  • IB does not require you to open accounts in multiple currencies. Deposit a single currency in an account and when you want to trade a product denominated in another currency, a loan is created which is secured by your deposited currency. If you want to eliminate the loan, you may do so at any time by trading currencies through our IDEAL FX* network or depositing money in another currency. You will find that our currency exchange rates are much better than retail banks or exchange rates offered by the credit card companies.

For each IB account, you designate a single base currency that determines the account's statement and margin requirement translation currency. However, deposits and withdrawals may be made in any non-base currency in AUD, CAD, CNH/CNY, CHF, CZK, DKK, EUR, GBP, HKD, HUF, INR, JPY, MXN, NOK, NZD, RUB, SEK, SGD or USD.



US IRA margin accounts are never allowed to borrow currency and must pay in full with the native currency of the asset. This may be accomplished by converting currency before the trade. Universal Account features are not available for multi-currency cash accounts. However, multi-currency cash accounts may trade in multiple currencies by trading currencies through our IDEAL FX* network.

* IDEAL FX includes a suite of FX execution services including IDEAL and IDEAL PRO.