I am thinking of opening a Sterling based account with IB USA and having my Sterling based Pension deposited with them each month. As I use US$ to live on I would be converting sterling to US$ on an as need basis through their IDEAL system. I would also be converting the bulk of the sterling into Euro´s to trade the DAX and invest in income producing vehicles in that currency. Because my Pension is paid in Sterling the base currency has to be sterling but the majority of the sterling would be traded in Euro´s or Dollars. Does anyone have experience operating IB in this way or have any other suggestions or comments on the financial safety of IB?
Can anyone out there comment on the IDEAL exchange rate and if one can convert to other currencies and transfer these funds?
IB is probably the most financially stable broker in the world. With profit margins of 50%... And a very conservative business model... Not much can go wrong.
Thank you Quantplus for the response. Have you any idea what would be the minimum amount of currency you could convert using the IDEAL system, it does not specify a minimum although the information in the contract center indicates it might be one and that the spread is slightly higher than the Interbank rates (1 PIP). I cannot see the actual rate as I have not opened the account yet Thanks for any input, Bruce
Ive converted like $1000 to Swedish Krona (which apparently is a much smaller currency than Sterling) and it worked fine. Spreads are small. USD - > GBP BID: 0.4802 ASK: 0.4809 = 0.14% spread Just remember IB have a treshold of $10000 equivalent before you earn interest, this is applied to all currency positions not total.