Interactive Brokers steps to convert and send money from USA

Weā€™re trying to obtain GV here before minimum investment increases. As someone above said all the information on this forum is like ā€œdrinking from a fire hoseā€ but absolutely invaluable-appreciate everyoneā€™s input.

Iā€™ve tried to quickly read through the messages on this thread because I intend to use my IBKR account to fund the bank account (currently being opened at Atlantico with help of our attorney) and subsequent GV investment. I had planned to just transfer funds straight from the IB account without having to transfer money in (as others have described doing) as my balance is more than enough to cover the transfer, which I planned to cover on margin without immediately selling securities to cover.

Has anyone else done it this way? ACH vs wire is best method? Never have used ā€œSEPAā€ before so not sure what that is?

TIA,
Curtis

ACH funds are ineligible for transfer for a month and a half. You probably donā€™t want that. Wire transferred funds are available immediately.

1 Like

Is that true for funds I already have and have had in my IB account?

No, the restriction on transferring funds applies to funds moved into IBKR via ACH.

You can not move money to a Portuguese bank using ACH. ACH is only used to move money between banks in the United States.

SEPA is similar to ACH, but for European banks (and with some design improvements over ACH). If you buy Euros on the FX market through IBKR, you can transfer them through SEPA to your European bank after the 3 day clearing period elapses. IBKR is on both ACH, for dollar transfers to and from the United States, and SEPA, for Euro transfers between European banks.

If you already have money at IBKR you can skip all the steps till the money moved into IBKR. You should be able to convert and SEPA into your Atlantico account. The only thing is you need to link your Atlantico account to IBKR and do a test transfer first as I think they have some limits on a newly linked account.

1 Like

Thanks for the input! Next question: has anybody been able to make the cash transfer on margin from IB?

Anyone have a link to IBKRā€™s settling time documentation for currency conversion?

Hmm, so supposedly I was able to withdraw my entire balance the same day I converted from usd to eur. Usd had been wired in and sitting in IBKR for a few weeks

Originally bumped into the daily withdrawal limit but by activating 2fa with the app I was able to withdraw everything all at once

See Financial Strength - Strength and Security | Interactive Brokers LLC

interesting - I was unable to move the EUR out for 2 days after the trade - it said I am trying to move the assets of a trade that have not settled yet. That was for funds that were past the ā€œcure periodā€ of the hold (funds that had been in my account for a while). Funnily enough - it did not say that for a $10 conversion, but it did say that a larger conversion.

Of course, IBKR let me set up and request the withdrawal, but then rejected it this morning because the forex trade hasnā€™t settled :roll_eyes:

Does anyone know if I am converting US$200k and then sending to Activo Bank from IBKR via SEPA, is there somewhere along the line I need to provide Activo or anyone with documentation about the source of funds for FinCEN reporting? Is that something I need to address? Will Activo accept the incoming transfer? Thanks for any insights.

I donā€™t know about Activo specifically, but your bank in Portugal is likely to ask about source of funds before issuing their declaration for the SEF application. Donā€™t think IBKR asks for FinCEN as long as it comes from another US bank via electronic transfer. Some banks explicitly will not accept anything but a wire from a US bank before they issue the certification needed by SEF. So I would check with the Portuguese bank directly before you transfer on what they need.

1 Like

Thanks Jim

1 Like

@luzudizi , did you end up investing with MFG Consultants? Keen to hear any feedback. Thanks!

1 Like

@td22, a friend of mine has had not very positive feedback from MFG Consultants so far: they went silent on him after initial payment was made, making no tangible progress after several months. I do not have all the details, but you might want to evaluate other options discussed on this site.

1 Like

We have seen suspicious activity in the past whenever they were mentioned on the forum, such as positive reviews by interconnected shill accounts. The names of the accounts were the same as several of their positive Google reviews, too.

1 Like

Thank you for sharing. This is very important for the forum users.

1 Like

This is good to know, thank you Hanna. Has anyone else have any experience with MFG Consultants?

@remo itā€™s better to avoid discussing this company in public on the forum, given the above-mentioned moderation issues we kept facing whenever they were mentioned. It takes time and effort to try to discern which pieces of feedback are legit and which are not. Weā€™d rather spend our energy elsewhere.

Letā€™s get back on topic for this threadā€¦ Converting money with Interactive Brokers!

I would really really appreciate any feedback you have on them (MFG consultants) or if you could ask your friends if they ever heard back from themā€¦ā€¦Itā€™s really important for me to know