Beginning with this release, you now update your IRS Form W-8 (non-US legal residents and non-US citizens) or W-9 (legal residents and citizens of US) on the Tax Form Collection Page. The W-8/W-9 page has been removed from Account Management.
Access the new Tax Form Collection page by clicking Manage Account > Account Information > Tax Information > Tax Forms to:
When an organization adds a new owner, the new owner must log in to Account Management to complete the form on the Tax Form Collection page.
We have made some changes to the way organizations, including Proprietary Trading Group and Small Business accounts, add new owners and update ownership percentages.
Beginning with this release, non-disclosed brokers can no longer update their clients' W8 or W9 forms in Account Management.
We no longer offer paper applications for any of our institution accounts or institution client accounts. We encourage our Advisor, Broker, Hedge Fund, and Proprietary Trading Group accounts to use fully electronic or semi-electronic client account applications, which are available from within Account Management.
Beginning with this release, requests from EmployeeTrack Management for Activity Statements and Activity Flex Queries with a large amount of activity will now be placed in a queue for batch processing. Specifically, any Activity Statement or Activity Flex Query request that includes over 20,000 activities or over 250 accounts will be automatically submitted for batch processing. When you generate one of these reports, you will receive a message indicating that it has been submitted for batch processing.
You can view the status of these requests as well as view completed report requests on the Batch Reports page, which is accessible in EmployeeTrack Management from the Reports > Activity menu.
For detailed information on batch reports in EmployeeTrack Management, see the EmployeeTrack Management Users' Guide.
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.
CRM now includes:
For detailed information on CRM, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
Beginning with this release, you can automatically invest your cash dividends from common and preferred stocks in the underlying stock. You turn automatic dividend reinvestment on or off at the account level only; that is, you cannot choose which dividends to reinvest. Once you enable dividend reinvestment in Account Management, IB will use your dividend payment to purchase additional shares of that stock.
Note the following:
For detailed information on how to enable and disable dividend reinvestment, see Dividend Reinvestment in the Account Management Users' Guide.
Effective with this release, the W-8/W-9 page that lets you update your Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification, has been moved. You can now find this page in the new Tax Information submenu in the Manage Account menu. To access the W-8/W-9 page, click Manage Account > Account Information > Tax Information > W-8/W-9.
Effective with this release, the password length limitations for login credentials have been significantly expanded to allow passwords of up to 40 characters long for Account Management access.
Previously, uploaded invoices for soft dollar disbursements were unavailable for viewing. With this new release, you can now both upload and view soft dollar invoices from the Funding > Soft Dollar Disbursements page in Account Management.
Beginning with this release, Brokers, Professional Advisors and Fund Investment Managers can choose to hide the Investors' Marketplace when setting up white branding for Account Management. Access these settings in Account Management by clicking Manage Account > Settings > White Branding, and then click Registration System, Account Management, Statements and PortfolioAnalyst. The Hide Investors' Marketplace check box is located in that section.
For more information, White Branding Account Management, the Registration System and Statements in the Account Management Users' Guide.
We've renamed our popular Hedge Fund Capital Introduction Program to Hedge Fund Marketplace. The program itself has not changed; only the name has changed. The Hedge Fund Marketplace is our online version of a traditional Capital Introduction program and is designed to help Hedge Funds who use us as their principal Prime Broker market their Funds to our customers who are Accredited Investors and Qualified Purchasers, as well as other Hedge Funds who have opened their funds to investing by qualified IB clients. Access the Hedge Fund Marketplace at our Investors' Marketplace, or by clicking Investors' Marketplace > Advertise Services > Investing > Hedge Funds in Account Management.
Beginning with this release, Brokers can charge markups to their clients based on our stock borrow rates, entered as a variable or fixed percentage of our borrow rate. You can enter both types of markups and our system will apply the markup rate that results in the larger total amount.
Enter markups on borrow fees on the Configure Fees page in Account Management (click Manage Clients > Fees > Configure), in the Interest Rate section.
For more information about borrow fee markups including examples, see Types of Broker Client Markups in the Account Management Users' Guide.
The enhancements and modifications below are available as of July 2, 2015.
Beginning with this release, Registered Investment Advisors can invest in a hedge fund at the Hedge Fund Marketplace (formerly Hedge Fund Investor Site) on behalf of an eligible client, and charge fees on the current value of the amount that their clients have invested at the same time.
The Advisor begins this process from the Dashboard by clicking the desired client account to view the Client Account Details, and then clicks Hedge Fund Marketplace in the Special Programs section. For each client who invests in a participating hedge fund, the Advisor can enter fees based on the Annualized Percentage of Net Liquidation Value of the current value of the client's investment in the Fund and/or the percentage of profit and loss of the client's investment in the Fund, as well as configure the fee posting frequency (monthly or quarterly), all from the Hedge Fund Marketplace.
Clients must approve hedge fund investments that you make for them if they have never invested in a specific fund before. If the Advisor included fee changes with the investment, the client can approve both the investment and the fee changes at the same time on the Pending Items page, available from the Account Management Home page. Once the client confirms the investment on the Pending Items page, he or she will be asked to enter a signature on a confirmation page. In addition, the Advisor can view any pending hedge fund investments for a client by clicking the Pending Items tab from the Dashboard.
To be eligible to invest in a Hedge fund at the Hedge Fund Investor Site, an Advisor client must be an Accredited Investor or Qualified Purchase under SEC rules. Click here to see additional eligibility requirements and rules for hedge fund investing.
Our new RIA Forums page gives Registered Investment Advisors access to the IB Advisor Forums, an online community for advisors. The IB Advisor Forums are built on a common Internet bulletin board forum and include the following features:
Access the RIA Forums page from the Support menu.
To post on the Advisor Forums, you will need to log in with your Voting Subscription username and password. If you do not have a Voting Subscription username and password, you will prompted to create them the first time you access the RIA Forums page.
We've also added the following enhancements to Account Management:
Beginning with this release, Advisors, Brokers and Multiple Hedge Fund Investment Managers view a list of all deleted client account applications. Simply selected Deleted Applications from the Status drop-down on the Dashboard page. Access the Dashboard by clicking Manage Clients > Dashboard.
Brokers can now set markups for IB-issued and Non-IB-issued warrants on the Configure Fees page. Access the Configure Fees page by clicking Manage Clients > Fees > Configure.
Beginning with this release, your active market data and research subscriptions will be terminated if you have not logged into Trader Workstation for 60 days. You can avoid termination by logging in to TWS, or by visiting the Market Data Subscription and Research pages in Account Management and clicking the new Continue Subscription button. Interactive Brokers always notifies you of impending termination of market data and/or research subscriptions.
View all of the rules of market data and research subscription termination here.
Beginning with this release, we've enhanced some features of the Dashboard, which lets Advisors, Brokers and Multiple Hedge Fund Investment Managers quickly and easily access information about their clients from a single point of access, as well as manage many aspects of each client account. Specifically, the following changes have been made:
For more information about viewing client account details, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
When you select a Time-in-Force (TIF) as part of entering restrictions on the Trading Restrictions page, you no longer enter a Begin Date and End Date for the GTC (Good-Til-Cancel) TIF selection.
Beginning with this release, Advisors, Brokers and Multiple Hedge Fund Investment Managers can now view Customer Service Messages and Corporate Actions for an individual client or fund account. Once you choose a specific account from the Dashboard, you can view messages for that account on the Messages tab and Corporate Actions on the Corporate Actions tab.
For more information about viewing client account details, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
We now accept applications for Fully Disclosed Broker accounts from Canada. For details about the information Canadian Fully Disclosed Brokers must provide to Interactive Brokers to support their account applications, see the What You Need page on our website. This page is also accessible from the Open Account menu after you select Broker from the SELECT drop-down on our home page.
The Meet with Management Marketplace has been renamed to Corporate Access Provider Marketplace. The Corporate Access Provider Marketplace is available from the Business Development category of our Investors' Marketplace. This Marketplace lets Advisors, Brokers and Hedge Funds search for and connect to Corporate Access Providers, who facilitate meetings, roadshows and conference calls between institutional investors and companies looking for potential investors.
Access the Investors' Marketplace from the Trading menu or the footer section on our website, or from the Investors' Marketplace menu in Account Management.
Hedge Fund Investment Managers with Multiple Fund accounts can now enable or disable trading for their fund and SMA accounts. Access this feature on the Client Trading page by clicking Manage Clients > Trading > Configuration.
Advisors can now charge fees on the current value of the amount that their clients have invested in hedge funds who participate in our Hedge Fund Capital Introduction Program (HFCIP), which is part of our Investors’ Marketplace. If you are an Advisor and you have already invested funds for your client at the Hedge Fund Investor Site (available at the Marketplace), the invested hedge fund will automatically be enabled for the fee program.
For each client who invests in a participating hedge fund, the Advisor can charge fees based on the Annualized Percentage of Net Liquidation Value of the current value of the client's investment in the Fund and/or the percentage of profit and loss of the client's investment in the Fund, as well as configure the fee posting frequency (monthly or quarterly). Advisor clients must approve the fee schedule by signing a form.
For more information, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
We've added the Meet with Management Marketplace to the Business Development category of our Investors' Marketplace. The Meet with Management Marketplace lets Advisors, Brokers and Hedge Funds search for and connect to Corporate Access Providers, who facilitate meetings, roadshows and conference calls between institutional investors and companies looking for potential investors.
Access the Investors' Marketplace from the Trading menu or the footer section on our website, or from the Investors' Marketplace menu in Account Management.
The Dashboard, which provides quick and easy access to information about Advisor, Broker and Hedge Fund client and fund accounts from a single point of access, has been updated with enhanced navigation. Beginning with this release, Advisors, Fully and Non-Disclosed Brokers and Multiple Hedge Fund Investment Managers can select how many accounts to view on a single page - 50, 75 or 100 - and can quickly navigate between pages of client account lists. This feature is especially useful for account structures with a large number of client and/or fund accounts.
For more information about the Dashboard, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
Beginning with this release, Advisors and Fully Disclosed Brokers with multiple accounts for a single family or an individual can group those accounts into a household to more efficiently manage those accounts. Individuals and Advisor and Broker clients can request that their accounts be grouped into a household to reduce the amount of paper mail they receive and to view consolidated reporting and account details in Account Management. The primary user of the household, called the Head of Household, is allowed to view reporting and account information of the other accounts in the household.
Advisors and Fully Disclosed Brokers can create households, add accounts to households, and perform other tasks related to households in Account Management.
Single accounts can household their accounts by submitting a paper form. The Create Household form is located on the Support > Paper Forms page in Account Management.
For more information about households, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
The ability to link your Individual, Joint, Trust and IRA account to an Advisor- or Broker-managed account has been enhanced:
To learn more about linking to Advisor- and Broker-managed accounts, see our Account Management Users' Guide.
Beginning with this release, all customers of IB LLC and all IB entities that clear through IB LLC (IB UK, IB Canada) and wish to trade penny stocks must request penny stock trading permissions in Account Management. Penny stocks are defined as any stock whose primary listing exchange is OTCBB, PINK or VALUE.
Before you can trade penny stocks, you must request penny stock trading permission in Account Management: click Manage Account > Trade Configuration > Permissions, select Penny Stocks, and then acknowledge our Penny Stock Disclosure.
Note the following additional guidelines for trading penny stocks:
Beginning with this release, you can now request a wire withdrawal of funds from your account to an eligible third party. A third-party withdrawal is a two-step process:
For detailed information about the eligibilty requirements and approval process for third-party withdrawals, refer to the Withdrawals page at the Funding Reference on our website.
For information on to how to request a third-party withdrawal in Account Management, see our Account Management Users' Guide.
Beginning with this release, Advisors, Fully Disclosed Brokers, Non-Disclosed Brokers and Multiple Hedge Fund Investment Managers can now quickly and easily access information about their clients from a single point of access, as well as manage many aspects of each client or fund account.
Previously, you could view lists of all open, pending, closed and rejected client or fund accounts from the Manage Clients > View menu, and view client account details from the View > Summary page in Account Management. This menu structure has been replaced by the Dashboard.
Access the Dashboard from the Manage Clients menu (Manage Funds menu for Hedge Funds) to view information about all of your client and fund accounts:
From the Dashboard, you can drill down to view and manage individual client and fund accounts:
For more information about the Dashboard, see the Account Management Users' Guide.
Beginning with this release, Brokers can now now link to Administrators at the Investors' Marketplace in Account Management. Administrators are third-party administrators, auditors, accountants or outside legal counsel who provide services institution accounts. Once linked to existing IB accounts, Administrators can these log in once to perform their services for multiple accounts.
Previously, only Financial Advisors, Hedge Funds and Proprietary Trading Groups could link to Administrators.
To learn more about searching for and linking to Administrator accounts, see our Account Management Users' Guide.
Beginning with this release, IB clients can now access the Traders' Library, part of our Investors' Marketplace. The Traders' Library connects you to bookshout.com, where you can search for investing-related books and purchase them at a discount. Simply follow the simple instructions on the bookshout.com website.
In Account Management, access the Traders' Library by clicking Investors' Marketplace > Search Services > Research > Traders' Library. You can also access the Traders' Library from the Investors' Marketplace on our website.
Beginning with this release, Fully Disclosed Brokers who wish to add a Multiple Hedge Fund account to their Broker account structure can now select a semi-electronic or paper application when adding the account. Previously, a Fully Disclosed Broker could only add a Multiple Hedge Fund account using the fully electronic application.
In a semi-electronic application, you complete the application electronically, print out a paper copy for the client to sign, then send the signed application to us for processing. For a paper application, you print a paper application and disclosures forms, give them to your client to complete and sign, then send the completed application to us for processing.
Once added to the Fully Disclosed Broker account, the Multiple Hedge Fund Investment Manager can add Fund or Separately Managed accounts, effectively creating a three-level account structure for the Fully Disclosed Broker.
In Account Management, a fully disclosed broker adds a Multiple Hedge Fund account on the Manage Clients > Accounts > Create > New page.
For more information, refer to the Account Management Users' Guide.
For detailed rules governing these new three-level accounts, see Rules for Three-level Fully Disclosed Broker Accounts.
Beginning with this release, we have added the following new features to Advisor Client Fee configuration:
Customers who participate in our Soft Dollars Program can now request soft dollars disbursements to approved soft dollar vendors from within Account Management.
You request disbursements to soft dollar vendors on the Funding > Soft Dollars Disbursement page in Account Management. Click the new Request Disbursement button for any vendor listed on the page, and then enter details about the disbursement on the form provided, including uploading an electronic invoice from your computer.
Previously, participants in the Soft Dollars Program could not request disbursements in Account Management.
The Link Existing Account page in Account Management lets you link multiple IB accounts under a single username and password. We have added the following enhancement to this feature:
You access the Link Existing Account page by clicking Manage Account > Add or Link Accounts > Link Existing Account in Account Management.
The following updates and enhancements are also available with this release: