Interactive Brokers provide a checking account to send money by direct deposit Can I use these number to pay services by direct debit ?
No. IB is not a bank, while brokers are not allowed to send/receive money from anyone besides the account holder.
They're not a bank but they may be associated with a bank. If they were, they would offer clients a debit VISA or debit Mastercard. Actually, I think TradeStation is associated with a bank. I wonder if customers of TradeStation are given a debit VISA or debit Mastercard as in the clients are allowed to move funds back n forth between the debit card account to their trading account ? wrbtrader
I think IB is trying to become a commercial bank as per latest quarterly cc Q&A. Rich Repetto - Okay. I guess another question is -- I guess, on the commercial bank license, can you sort of talk about where that stands? And what sort of an impact it will have? Thomas Peterffy - So we're still at the question-and-answer phase. And as far as impact, it is going to start up very gradually. The impact will be very gradual. First, we will take FDIC-insured deposits and time deposits, and will enter into some non-purpose secured loans, and we are going to build it up very slowly and carefully. file:///C:/Users/Homebase2/Documents/Misc/4Q19_IBKR_earnings_call_transcript.pdf
Not many people know, but its not a secret: IB can pay third parties. If you have rent to pay or some major purchase they will wire to a third party. It requires manual authorization and they will ask for full documentation, but it can be done. Regulations only forbid brokers to receive money from third parties.
They don't always allow third party wires. I participated in a private placement successfully by wiring money from IB once. But then a couple of months later I tried it again and IB said they don't allow third party wires for private placements anymore. So I'm not sure what they allow and what they don't allow and you won't know until you try.