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Strengths and Safety

  • All together, the Interactive Brokers Group (IBG LLC) has an equity capital of more than US$ 5 billion at its disposal.
  • Contrary to other companies, the IB management holds a major part of the shares and is thus strongly involved in the current course of business. Therefore, in their own interest, the management board is rather conservative.
  • The customer’s securities accounts at Interactive Brokers are secured by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (“SIPC”). In addition, every customer can take out a private insurance through a broker dealer, and thereby protect its contributions.
  • IB provides the IB Security Device free of costs, for an even more secure log-in.
  • Customer funds are held in segregated bank or custody accounts, the income exclusively accrues to IB customers. The account security (SEC: “Reserve” accounts and “CFTC: “Segregation” accounts) is the most important requirement for securities and commodities brokerage firms. Given that brokerage firms are obliged to hold customer funds in separate accounts, these are ready for immediate disbursement in case of an insolvency of the broker, provided that the customer does not hold any futures positions and/or has not borrowed any shares or assets.
  • Part of the customer funds is usually invested in U.S. Treasury Securities and FDIC-backed bonds. Although the supervisory authorities would allow it, IB does at the moment not invest in so-called money market funds; we thus take into account the current credit risks and concerns in the area of state indebtedness.
  • In these “reserve” and “segregated” accounts, IB holds a surplus from own assets, to guarantee that all customers are protected.