This situation could arise if you opened with IB-UK while residing in EU and later moving away. Also, not sure, but its possible IB-UK is older than IB-HK and residents of HK would have gone through IB-UK back then. In order to 'switch' to IB USA LLC (away from IB UK) you need to file a new application and start anew. This would also introduce a bunch of problems. Aside from complete account re-configuration (including trading permissions, etc.) all trading records would be 'lost' (as they would be bound to the original account and not the new account). So for those who need to generate reports, they will have to 'merge' old reports with new reports. Additionally, all banking information for funds transfers would have to be setup again. And if there was any benefit for being a client for a long period of time, those benefits may be lost. (Not sure if there are any, but its nice to see client for 10+ years, as opposed to 1 month )
I guess that an european customer, even if willing to open a new account and lose any history et al, won't be able to open it in IB USA to get rid of IB UK ?
Thank you for pointing out yet another disadvantage of CFDs. And yes, also this one is a real problem. Certainly something to keep in mind. I do however see that when I add these CFDs in TWS that the bid and ask prices are exactly the same as the original stocks/ETFs. But obviously the conflict of interest is there all the same. So you see just how well this EU protection really does a great job, by banning us from these products, they are forcing us to do things which are way more riskier. But then again, that's just so typical for all that's being created by these immorally highly overpaid destroyers of Europe. We all know why they really did it. They want us to buy the European ETFs. Which basically are very primitive, expensive trash products. Just maybe that in like 40 to 50 years the Europeans ETFs have reached the present level of the American ones, but even that is not very likely.
IB is not the first UK broker to use professional status to get around EU regulations, although they may be the first for the priips kid rules. The spread bet firms in the UK have been pushing clients to go professional for some months now to avoid the new EU regulations of leverage limits on CFD products for retail clients.
EU broker encouraging clients to choose professional status: https://www.cityindex.co.uk/professional-client/
Ok, thank you, I really appreciate it. I've never traded CFDs before, so I haven't really looked into them so far. But it's good to know that besides MM CFDs, there are also the DMA CFDs. That's perhaps one concern less then. I'm thinking of trading some ETFs as CFDs, although the ones that I used to trade the most, are unfortunately not available as CFDs. Too bad. I can only hope IB will add more ETFs as CFDs. Because I won't qualify as a professional client.
Just got an E-mail from State Street Global Advisors that they have no intention to release KID for their US SPDR ETFs.