Registered Investment Advisors can now create multiple-tier accounts that match their own company strucutre by adding Advisor, Proprietary Trading Group STL and Multiple Hedge Fund master accounts to their account structure. Each Advisor, Proprietary Trading Group STL and Multiple Hedge Fund master account holder can then add client/sub/hedge fund accounts as required. Advisors cannot add Money Managers to a multiple-tier account structure.
For more information about setting up three-tier Advisor accounts, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
Advisors and Brokers who have additional users associated with their master account can allow these users to access all of CRM. To enable CRM access for these users, send an email to crm@interactivebrokers.com and include your account number the name of the primary master account user. Once enabled, these additional users will have access all CRM features.
Note that only one user can edit a CRM contact at one time. A second user will not be able to edit a contact that is currently being edited by another user. If this happens, a message appears to inform the second user that the record is locked for editing.
We've renamed our Reg T Margin accounts. We're now calling these account "Margin" accounts. The margin rules and capabilities of these accounts have not changed; only the name has changed. You will see the new name for this account type reflected on the Account Types page in Account Management when you want to upgrade a Cash account to a Margin account or upgrade your Margin account to a Portfolio Margin account, and account applicants will see this change reflected in our account applications.
We've added a new trading restriction for Advisor, Proprietary Trading Group, Broker and Fund Investment Manager master account users who need to restrict trading for their client/sub accounts. Concentration Restrictions By Product restrict client/sub accounts or the entire account structure from making any trade that would cause the concentration in specific products or security types to exceed an amount or percent threshold.
To configure this trading restriction, select a product or security type, and then enter concentration amount or percent thresholds, and optionally set Time-in-Force (TIF) settings to apply the restriction to a specific date range. You can apply this restriction to long positions and/or short positions in your portfolio. When you set an amount or percent Concentration Restriction By Product, any orders that cause the amount or percentage of position concentration of the selected product to exceed the specified threshold will be rejected.
Click here for more information on setting trading restrictions for client/fund/sub accounts.
Click here for more information on setting trading restrictions for your entire account structure (master and client/fund/sub accounts).
In addition to the new trading restriction described above, we've also added a new trading restriction for Advisor, Proprietary Trading Group, Broker and Fund Investment Manager master account users who need to restrict trading for their client/sub accounts, and for Compliance Officers who use EmployeeTrack to monitor employees' trading activities. Restrictions by Product restrict client/sub account or the entire account structure from trading specific products or security types.
To configure this trading restriction, select a product or security type, and optionally set Time-in-Force (TIF) settings to apply the restriction to a specific date range. Orders for the enabled product and security type restrictions will be rejected.
Click here for more information on setting trading restrictions for client/fund/sub accounts.
Click here for more information on setting trading restrictions for your entire account structure (master and client/fund/sub accounts).
IB is dedicated to providing our clients with the best research. To that end, we now let all of our clients set up a separate login to receive additional services from our third-party research providers.
In Account Management, click Manage Account > Research Services > Research Website Login, select a research provider, and then enter a unique password. Once the new password has been processed (usually one business day), you can use your IB account email address and the new password to log in to your selected research provider's website to access that provider's additional services.
To help Advisors who bill advisory fees using one of IB’s Automatic Calculation options meet their compliance obligations, we can send your clients invoices detailing the advisory fees automatically calculated and deducted from their accounts at their request when those fees are actually charged. These notices describe the method used to calculate the fee, the amount of the fee and the period covered by the fee.
Advisors can now choose how to notify their clients of advisory fee invoices by clicking the Configure Invoice Notifications button on the Manage Clients > Fees > Invoicing page.
Choose how we send these notices to all of your clients:
For complete instructions, see Configure Invoice Notifications in the Account Management Users' Guide.
We've added a new trading restriction for Advisor, Proprietary Trading Group, Broker and Fund Investment Manager master account users who need to restrict trading for their client/sub accounts. Trading Hours restrictions restrict a selected client/sub/fund account from trading during specific hours.
Compliance Officers using EmployeeTrack Management to manage employees' trading activities can also apply the new Trading Hours restriction to employees.
To configure this trading restriction, simply select time zone and then enter the start and end times of the period during which you want to restrict the client/sub/fund account's trading. Orders placed from the account during the hours indicated will be rejected.
Click here for more information on setting trading restrictions for client/fund/sub accounts.
Click here for more information on setting trading restrictions for your entire account structure (master and client/fund/sub accounts).
Brokers can charge markups on prime trades of certain currency/product units in the new Take Up Fees section on the Configure Fees page. This section only appears for brokers who have at least one client who subscribes to our IB Prime institutional service.
Specify the take up fee as absolute amount in the Ticket Charge field for the specific currency/product unit; for example, CAD futures. A take up fee is simply an additional flat fee.
For more information on broker client fees, see Broker Client Fees in the Account Management Users' Guide.
We've added a new trading restriction for Advisor, Proprietary Trading Group, Broker and Fund Investment Manager master account users who need to restrict trading for their client/sub accounts. Concentration Restrictions by Symbol restrict a selected client/sub/fund account from making any trade that would cause the position concentration in specific symbols in the account to exceed an amount or percent threshold.
To configure this trading restriction, you search for and select specific symbols, and then enter concentration amount or percent thresholds, and optionally set Time-in-Force (TIF) settings to apply the restriction to a specific date range. For this trading restriction, we calculate the net amount of all positions in your portfolio. You can apply this restriction to long positions and/or short positions in your portfolio. When you set an amount or percent Concentration Restriction By Symbol, any orders that cause the amount or percentage of position concentration of the selected symbols to exceed the specified threshold will be rejected.
Click here for more information on setting trading restrictions for client/fund/sub accounts.
Click here for more information on setting trading restrictions for your entire account structure (master and client/fund/sub accounts).
We've updated our database-driven Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, which lets advisors and brokers manage the entire customer relationship life cycle in one place in Account Management.
To make it easier to send IB account applications to contacts and prospects, we've added the following links to individual contact records:
We've also added the following links to individual contact records:
We've added more Account Management functions to our User Access Rights system. When assigning access rights to users, you can now specify access rights to the following functions in Account Management:
We've added new trading restrictions for Advisor, Proprietary Trading Group, Broker and Fund Investment Manager master account users who need to restrict trading for their client/sub accounts.
Net Portfolio Trading Restriction - Restrict a client/sub account from making any trade that would cause the net amount of all positions in the account to exceed an amount or percent threshold. This restriction allows Time-in-Force (TIF) settings to apply the restriction to a specific date range. For this trading restriction, we calculate the net amount of all positions in your portfolio. You can apply this restriction to long positions and/or short positions in your portfolio. When you set an amount restriction, any orders that cause the net amount of all of your positions to exceed the specified threshold will be rejected. When you set a percent restriction, any orders that cause the percentage of the net amount of all of your positions to exceed the specified threshold will be rejected. For more information, see Net Portfolio Restrictions.
Liquidation/Closing-only Trading Restriction - Restrict a selected client/sub account to liquidation or position-closing trades only. This restriction allows Time-in-Force (TIF) settings to apply the restriction to a specific date range.
Institution master account users set these trading restrictions for specific client/sub/fund accounts on the Manage Clients/Funds/Traders > Trading > Restrictions page. For more information, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
Institution master account users can also set these restrictions for their entire account family (master account and all client/sub/fund accounts) or only for their own account on the Manage Account > Trade Configuration > Restrictions page. For more information, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
Cash Forex (known in the past as Leveraged Forex or Forex-Leveraged), lets you borrow to establish a Forex position (i.e., trade Forex on a leveraged basis).
All IB LLC customers, IB-UK customers introduced to IB LLC on a fully disclosed basis, and all fully disclosed broker clients MUST be Eligible Contract Participants (ECPs) to be be eligible to trade Cash Forex. An Eligible Contract Participant is generally an individual or organization with assets of over $10 MM (or $5 MM if trades are hedging). The complete definition is located in Section 1a(18) of the Commodity Exchange Act.
Request permission to trade Cash Forex on the Manage Account > Trade Configuration > Permissions page in Account Management. If you are not already an ECP, you will be asked to complete a brief questionnaire to become an ECP. Once you have been approved as an ECP, you will be able to trade Cash Forex.
Advisor, Proprietary Trading Group, Broker and Fund Investment Manager master account users can now restrict trading for their own accounts, for their entire account families (including all client/sub accounts), and for specific client/sub accounts based on Net Margin thresholds.
Net Margin trading restrictions can be based on Excess Liquidity or Margin Cushion thresholds. Once the restriction has been set in Account Management, any trade that would result in either Excess Liquidity or Margin Cushion falling below the specified threshold would be rejected.
Institution master account users set this trading restrictions on the Manage Clients/Funds/Traders > Trading > Restrictions page. For more information, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
Eligible IB clients can now request permission to trade Forex CFDs on the Manage Account > Trade Configuration > Permissions page. All clients can trade Forex CFDs, except residents of the USA, Canada, Hong Kong and Australia. There are no exemptions based on investor type to the residency-based exclusions. Forex CFDs are traded exactly like Spot FX.
Forex CFDs, like other CFDs, are carried by IB UK, and therefore if you have an IB LLC account you will be prompted to open an IB UK segment. The IB UK segment will have your current account number followed by the suffix F.
For more information about Forex CFDs, see the IB Forex CFDs - Facts and Q&A topic in the IB Knowledge Base.
We've added more Account Management functions to our User Access Rights system. When assigning access rights to users, you can now specify access rights to the following functions in Account Management:
Advisors can now create default fee templates on the Manage Clients > Fees > Templates page. You can modify the default fee template but you cannot delete it.
Your base currency determines the currency of translation for your statements and the currency used for determining margin requirements. Base currency is determined when you open an account. Customers who hold a margin account may change their base currency at any time through Account Management.
We've added the following base currencies:
Advisors and Fully Disclosed Brokers can request inbound international asset transfers for a client account but the client must create a position transfer instruction first and the Advisor or Broker must use those instructions.
As an Advisor, when you configure client fees, you can include a maximum invoicing amount or percentage cap on a monthly or quarterly basis. The percentage cap is the maximum percentage of the amount of a client account's Net Asset Value (NAV) to be invoiced. You can set an amount or a percentage cap or both.
We've updated the percentage cap so that you must enter the amount and/or percentage cap and then select the time period (monthly or quarterly). If you set both the amount and the percentage cap, we will use the lower of the two amounts as the amount to be charged.
For percentage cap, we look back on the prior period to calculate the fee limit, while amount looks at the current period. The calculation we use is:
(Fee Cap % x Ending Client NAV) / 252
where 252 is the average number of business days in a year.
For more information, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
Separately Managed Accounts (SMAs) under an Advisor can add users to the SMA account and add trading access for those users, but ONLY if client trading has been enabled for SMA account.
You can now disable the Hong Kong (Short Sell) trading permission on the Manage Account > Trade Configuration > Permissions page. Previously you could enable this trading permission but could not disable it.
Canadian (IB-CA) account holders can now subscribe to the following IB Institutional Services:
For more information about these services and how to subscribe to them, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
When you log in to Account Management, you can now use your use your live or paper trading account username and password to log in to your paper trading account. You can still use your paper trading account username and password to log in to your paper trading account.
For more information, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
Second-tier Advisors (RIA's under a Fully Disclosed Broker account), unregistered Advisors and Friends and Family account Advisors can now access the Money Manager Marketplace, link to Money Managers and assign client accounts to Money Managers. Previously, these accounts had no access to Money Managers.
We've updated the format for .CSV client invoice files uploaded by Advisors on the Manage Clients > Fees > Invoicing page.
The .CSV file containing multiple client invoices should contain the following fields in the following order (note that some fields are optional):
For more information, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
Fully Disclosed Brokers can now close client accounts. Previously, Fully Disclosed Brokers could not close client accounts.
For more information, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
Fund Investment Manager and Registered Professional Advisor who use soft dollars to offset the costs of purchasing approved research products and services can now use soft dollars to pay for market data. Elect to use soft dollars to pay for market data on the Funding > Soft Dollars Disbursement page in Account Management.
The following rules apply to the use of soft dollars for market data:
For more information, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
You can now link your individual, joint, trust or IRA account to an existing Advisor- or Broker-managed account under a single username. Previously when you linked an existing account to an Advisor- or Broker-managed account, you had different usernames for each linked account.
Link existing accounts on the Manage Account > Add or Link Accounts > Link Existing Accounts page.
Advisors who upload invoices for multiple clients in a .CSV (comma-separated values) file can now include model fees in their .CSV file. Add the Model field to your .CSV file to include model fees in your client invoices.
Advisors upload invoices on the Manage Clients > Fees > Invoicing page in Account Management.
The Advisor/Broker Account Setup page has been renamed. It is now called Move, Link or Partition an Account, and is still available from the Manage Account > Add or Link Accounts page. The functions available on this page have not changed. You still use this page to where you move your entire account to an Advisor or Broker, create a new account that will be managed by an Advisor or Broker, or divide your account into two partitions, one of which will be managed by an Advisor or Broker and one of which will be managed by you.
For more information, see Move, Link or Partition an Account in the Account Management Users' Guide.
When you use the Account Selector to select accounts on Reporting pages (Activity Statements, etc.), you can now search for and select account partitions.
We no longer support Self-Directed IRA Third-Party Custodian Accounts. This account type allowed Advisors to add IRA client accounts held at designated third-party trustees.
We have made the following updates to our Secure Login System physical security devices:
Note that these changes do not affect IBKR Mobile authentication (IB Key), our two-factor authentication security app for your Android or iOS mobile device.
For more information, see our Login Protection page.
Advisors can now specify a maximum invoice amount as a percentage of a client's Net Asset Value when they configure client fees on the Manage Clients > Fees > Configure page in Account Management. Advisors can specify an absolute amount in the Amount field, the new percentage cap in the Cap field, or both. Advisors must also specify either Monthly or Quarterly as the time period.
Interactive Brokers has always allowed our clients to opt out of the Secure Login System program, which provides login protection through two-factor authentication. We believe that it's important for our clients to protect their accounts, so we have removed the ability to fully opt out of the program.
All clients can still request a partial opt-out. When you request a partial opt-out, a Secure Login device is required to log into Account Management only. You will be able to use your username and password without a security device to log into any of our trading platforms.
As of March 15, 2016, the Trader Referral Program was discontinued. Interactive Brokers will no longer be accepting applications to this program. If you signed up for the Trader Referral Program before March 15, 2016, you will still receive your referral bonus, subject to the requirements and restrictions that were in place when the program was active.
If you would like to become a Referral Partner, see our Referral Partner page.
The RIA Forums, previously available from the Support menu, have been removed from Account Management.
Transaction history (Funding > Transaction History) now includes Free Delivery position transfers, which are free delivery transactions not initiated in Account Management.
The Trader Workstation page (Trade > Trader Workstation) has been removed from Account Management. You can no longer connect to TWS from within Account Management.
We have modified the procedure for white branding Trader Workstation (TWS). Advisor and Broker Masters and Hedge Fund Investment Managers who want to white brand TWS no longer have to create custom .jnlp files to provide white-branded TWS access. Instead, you must now provide one of two hyperlinks on your website:
If you have previously configured your website with .jnlp files, replace the old JNLP link on your website with one of the links above and verify that the White Branding logo is the correct size on the download page and that you can download and install TWS successfully.
The Trader Workstation page (Trade > Trader Workstation) has been removed from Account Management. You can no longer connect to TWS from within Account Management.
Minimum monthly fees, IRA account fees and market data and research fees are charged to client accounts by default. Previously, Advisors could elect to charge these fees for all client accounts to their own Advisor master account on the Manage Clients > Fees > Charge Fees to Master page in Account Management.
Begining with this release, Advisors can now charge these fees to their own master account on a per-client account basis. The Charge Fees to Master page has been removed and Advisors now make this election when configuring client fees on the Manage Clients >Fees > Configure Fees page.
If you have a multiple account structure (linked accounts, for example), you could always use the account switching tool at the bottom of any page in Account Management to change the active account for all of Account Management. This tool now supports account partitions, which means that if you have divided your account into partitions, you can now change the active account in Account Management from the parent partition to the child partition using the account switching tool.
To change the active account, simply click the down arrow next to your account title at the bottom of any page in Account Management, and then select a different account or partition from the list that opens. In the list, partitions are underlined; to select a different partition, click the account listed immediately below the line with the word "Partition."
We've added a new Position Transfer Method to the Funding > Position Transfers page in Account Managment: International Assets. International Assets position transfers REPLACE the previous methods of transferring Asian and European positions into your IB account. Make note of the following changes:
You use the Advisor/Broker Acount Setup page to move or link your account to an Advisor- or Broker-managed account, or divide your account into partitions, one of which will be managed by an Advisor or Broker. This page has been removed from the Manage Account menu.
To access this page, you now first search for and select an Advisor in the Advisor Marketplace or a Broker in the Broker Marketplace, then click the Link button in the information window for that Advisor or Broker. In Account Management, you access these marketplaces from the Investors' Marketplace > Search Services > Investing menu.
You now have more than one option when you want to link your account to an Advisor- or Broker-managed account:
Advisor- or Broker-managed accounts and partitions may be subject to fees as specified by the Advisor or Broker.
You link your account to an Advisor- or Broker-managed account by requesting a link in the Advisor's or Broker's listing in the Advisor Marketplace or the Broker Marketplace, or by selecting Manage Account > Add or Link Accounts > Advisor/Broker Account Setup in Account Management.
For more information about linking to an Advisor-or Broker-managed account, see the Account Management Users' Guide.