I did yesterday and there is not problems…for the moment!
Cool, let me know as soon as your account is ready.
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I have IB and TD (tdameritrade) Account - everything was done with online signing and e-mail.
With TD i also have special prices for option trading.
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IB has many different interfaces. You don’t have to use the complicated WebTrader or TWS. If you just enter in the User Portal there is a simple trading interface, it almost looks like a modern phone app embedded in there. Also IB does have a good mobile app.
Also while we are here… Does anyone have experience with the German DKB.de? They have really cheap ‘Sparplan’ options (1.50€ per execution) and it seems possible to open an account with them even if you are not in Germany. If it worked it would be ideal for us passive investors, since you can just create your portfolio allocation, a Dauerauftrag in your bank, and forget about it.
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Allow me to be honest: I find you fear of IB ridiculous, although I had similar anxieties: oh no, it’s not shiny UI like in Corner Trader, how should I use it? Turns out it’s pretty easy. First of all, never use the TWS desktop application, the WebTrader is enough for simple buy and sell. Then, you can make a trade with maybe 3 clicks in your browser, I don’t know how could it be easier. You even have screenshots on this forum.
But, it was nice to read through this thread, because I was looking for some IB alternative when I close CT. Do you guys with more than 200k invested have only one broker or do you split between more brokers?
Schwab and TD Ameritrade look like good options, but can someone, who has an account there, explain to me how it works with sending the money, currency exchange and fees? At IB you have full control and it looks like this:
- Send CHF via a local transfer to a CHF account of IB (no fee from IB or bank)
- Money appears as CHF in IB
- You can manually exchange CHF to USD at IB FX exchange (very low fee and spread)
- Now you have USD and can buy USD ETFs
- Then when paying out, you can exchange back to CHF or EUR or PLN (again very cheap)
How does it work at other brokers? I tried to find information on Schwab website, but they are really not targeting international customers. Can you send them CHF? Will they automatically convert it to USD? At what exchange rate? Is there a fee? Or do they allow multiple currencies? Then when you pay out, how does this work? Can you withdraw in EUR or GBP or PLN?
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Very important questions indeed.
But thank you for your feedback, I will give it a try. Any reason why you need a 2nd broker?
FYI MoustachianPost is working on a very detailed step by step guide on how to use IB, so maybe you want to wait for that to come out before deciding for a different broker 
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Good question. I am asking it myself. I just want to know the best practice of people who already have a bit more saved than me. Let’s take it further: is it perfectly save to keep 1 million USD in VT at IB, if this is all your wealth? Are there any risks? Intuition tells me there could be some potential problems, with a very low probability: broker gets hacked, your account gets hacked, broker goes bankrupt and it takes many months until your assets are unlocked. I just don’t know what really rich people do, how they protect their assets.
Jesus, forget it, forget the Java app. You can do everything in WebTrader, including FX exchange.
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I just searched the forum for “webtrader”, this is the first result, my post from Sept 2017 with screenshots. Read on a few of these posts, you will also find a step by step guide to FX exchange.
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Sounds good.
Is there a sexy way of displaying your assets?
The WebTrader doesn’t do FX, it just lets you buy currencies on the Market which then take 2 days to get settled. (Or at least I haven’t found a way.) And it always adds those weird virtual positions.
It’s much easier to do everything from the User Portal where you can also manage your account data (the “white” modern page). Also FX only takes a couple of minutes there.
WebTrader is better to initially find the ETFs you want to buy. There’s a text search on the top right somewhere, which shows exact details of the ETF you searched (not just some short tracker symbol). Then you can add them to your watch list and switch back to the user portal.
I meant that you can exchange currencies with WebTrader, with a live exchange rate, maybe that’s not a fully fledged FX platform, but it’s enough for most of us.
IB’s venue for executing Forex trades, referred to as IdealPro, operates as an exchange-style order book, assembling quotes from the largest international Forex banks as well as other IB clients and market makers.
With WebTrader you have access to IdealPro, so I would say that you can indeed execute Forex trades. Settlement of 2 days is something that is also standard for stock trades. If you want to instantly trade then you need the margin account. But I had the impression that we are all just buy and hold simple investors here?
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But IB has a decent FX platform. You just have to login in the other view instead of WebTrader. That’s what I was trying to point out, since it’s easy to miss that on the account management page there’s a much simpler and better trading interface.
Yes your assets are displayed very nicely. Nice smooth modern graphs with the growth over time.
There’s even a portfolio analyzer that shows you what sectors and stuff you have in there, and compares your performance to the indices you want. It even creates professional looking portfolio performance documents, as if you were some big hedgefund manager. 
The reporting possibilities are also great. It lets you choose every time period you need, lists all your assets, all your trades, your profits over time, … everything you could possibly ever need for archival or tax purposes.
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Well… I’ve been reading people around and I did a test between Revolut and Transferwise.
I have a “real” US account in Transferwise, Routing number, account…etc… not IBAN.
I sent money from Revolut (50 US$) to my account in transferwise using the routing and number (as indicated by TD if you have an US account, not the international wires) and worked perfectly.
I sent 50, I received 50 without any commision or fees.
I suppose will work the same with TD… to be verified as soon as I have the account opened in TD.
I have been using them as my main banking account for almost 10 years now and never had any problem. Opened up a Depot some years ago, but never started using it as I am using onvista-bank.de for that because of slightly better pricing until recently.
If I would start now, I would probably use dkb.de, as their Sparplan for 1.50 EUR is now one of the cheapest I know of (independent of amount of Sparplan in contrast to onvista), and also 10 EUR for a normal order is okay.
IB is for sure better if you buy US-ETFs, but as far as I know IE-ETFs are not that cheap there as well, so I am still with a german broker. 
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Is tax wise everything also ok? I.e. not that the broker automatically pays German taxes or something.
When I officially moved out of Germany, I just got a form that I do not live there anymore, gave it to the banks and since then there are no taxes deducted, neither on interest (DKB), nor on capital gains, dividends etc (onvista). If you never lived in Germany before, that should be even less of a problem.