Last month Interactive Brokers (IBKR) launched their Wise integration for their personal accounts (including IBKR Pro):
For business accounts the option seems to be missing.
I went ahead and connected my personal Wise account to do a test transfer (you’ll connect it via the regular deposit menu):
You’ll be redirected to Wise to authenticate, then you land back on this deposit screen:
Notice that you’ll be charged Wise’s regular same-currency transfer fee (0.39 USD in this case), and that there will be no trading hold once the deposit hits your IBKR account. You can withdraw to another bank account three days later.
I initiated this test on a Friday and the estimated arrival is the following Tuesday. I think this would be faster (or even instant) if I had topped up with EUR or another currency that supports instant bank transfers. In the Wise app it says the transfer should reach IBKR the same day by 9.30 am ET, so I’ll report back how soon after that the funds become available within IBKR.
In other words the Wise transfer option is superior to ACH deposits initiated from within IBKR, due to having the same trading and withdrawal holds as the much more expensive wire transfers. Yet it offers the same convenience of initiating the transfer directly within your IBKR account.
Of course, you’ll need to have the funds in your Wise account first…
Finally you’re asked to approve the transfer with your Wise credentials and 2FA method:
In case you were wondering, the integration works in the other direction as well—to an extent. All it really does is pre-fill your Wise account details so it’ll be correctly saved as one of your withdrawal accounts. The withdrawals follow the same one free monthly transfer per currency rule as any other IBKR to bank transfers:
