Interactive Brokers or another broker? [2023]

Investing / Brokers
42

Both, especially IB, were discussed enough on this forum. I suggest to do your research first and then ask specific questions if you still have some.

Also check MP and poorswiss blogs.

43

So it seems trading costs are low at both, IB currency exchange seems great (simpler and cheaper than passing by wire/revolut to get euros I think).

I’m wondering if there are other relevant implications I might not think about. Tax implications maybe?

44

You can search and find threads on how to do tax declaration with IB on this blog and forum.

45

Why ask any question about banks or taxes at all on an internet forum when all the information you’d ever need can be found in the banks terms and conditions and everything about taxes can be found in international, federal and cantonal law?

I think people are usually hoping that some other person knows more about the subject and would be willing to share.

And sometimes they are not sure if a subject warrants further research at all.

Both is true for me in this case.

(Maybe the title was too broad and incited “do your own fucking research” answers. I clarified.)

46

I have stocks & ETF’s at IB, but no (relevant) experience with DKB.

There’s no tax implications between IB and the usual Swiss brokers IMO, so I doubt there’ll be between IB and DKB.
One positive point re IB and taxes, is that I’ve used the IB annual report a few years now for the tax declaration (just one line including stocks, dividends & wht and attaching the Annual Report), whereas almost all Swiss brokers will charge CHF 100 - 250 for such a “tax” report.

47

Thank you @rolandinho

 yes DKB luckily generates such documents automatically at the end of the year (yet to see if they are ok for the Swiss tax office but one holds ALL the information about stocks held and their value at the end of the year and another document with the details of all dividends and interests payed as well as Quellensteuern withheld).

48

Sure. This community did it hundreds of times.

You can also try statistical approach:

  • I am using Interactive Brokers
  • I am using DKB broker
  • I use neither
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49

The answer to your question is:

For me definitely: multi currency account, lower fees, excellent FX exchange conditions, access to US ETFs.

50

For me, I’d add access to more exchanges like HK, tools and market data (desktop app, charts, fundamentals and research info), far better UI, recurring investments and sub-accounts. (Transfer)Wise integration. Security wise, be it DDoS or breach, I trust IB far more than DKB - and I’m a customer of both. In a market meltdown situation, I trust IB to be more resilient than most other brokers, we have seen 2020 Covid crazyness when IB remained, if I recall correctly, full operational.

51

Thank you this is helpful. I’ll look further into it but with no urgency then :+1::+1:

52

I agree with your conclusion, but in those cazytimes, on a day or two, IB did prevent me from buying more Gamestop though (had I wanted to, which i didn’t). #neverforget :wink:

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53

For investing ETFs: both are relatively cheap (as long you’re investing in a fund that’s available discounted and/or as a savings plan at DKB).

IBKR undeniably offers much more - and many things cheaper.


in the U.S.

As resilient as a boring quasi state-owned German bank? No way, with all the margin, security lending and short selling they’re offering. Personally, I’d sleep better with my holdings at DKB.

IBKR has proven that during the GameStop craze.

54

Hi All,

First post here but long time enjoyer of this blog and forum, thanks for having me :slight_smile:

I have around 200K CHF on CornerTrader split between VT, VOO & CHSPI. I do a handful of trades per year, not especially dilligently, and typically get hit with CT’s 35CHF inactivity fee 1-2 times per year. I understand I’d also save a CHF or two on transaction fees if I were to switch.

Costs aside, while I’ve been quite happy with customer service at CT, it seems like a bit of a weird shop to me, between not having 2FA by default and having to call them if you want to withdraw funds


Around the time I opened my account, CT was still lauded as a favourite, or at least equivalent to IBKR. These days though it seems consensus here that IBKR is the way to go. I’m posting here to check whether I understood that correctly, and whether it would make sense for me to switch to IBKR, as someone who’s already using CT?

+Bonus question: Hassle aside, what would be the cheapest way to switch? I would have both accounts in CHF.

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55

I can’t speak for IBKR. Regarding CornùrTrader, I share your thoughts. The recent implementation of their new login platform has also been rather cumbersome in my case. I’ve closed my account also for other reasons but I wouldn’t advise using CornùrTrader going forward, even though I have in the past (mostly because I didn’t know them enough then, I think).

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56

According to Pricing: Our commissions and fees | CornĂšrtrader | CornĂšrtrader outgoing transfers are 50.- per position.

According to https://brokerchooser.com/broker-reviews/interactive-brokers-review/portfolio-transfer incoming transfers to IBKR are free.

Option 1: Transfer using the transfer forms → can take some time and might include some hassle when forms are not filled out correctly.

Option 2: Sell securities on CT → Transfer funds to personal account → Transfer funds to IBKR → buy securities

If sell fee CT + funds withdrawal fee CT + buy fee IBKR < 150.- choose option 2 else option 1.

Alternatively you can call and request a free or reduced outgoing transfer as 200k and the fees you generated is not small.

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57

But you stay invested and don’t really care how long the transfer takes place. What you should care in this case are fees.

You might also want to take it as an opportunity to consolidate your positions, like “all in VT”.

Or maybe not if selling and buying is more expensive than transferring.

Or you do it partially: transfer USD positions and sell CHF positions.

Get the numbers at take a look at them.

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58

i also have my portfolio with cornertrader and have now switched to interactive brokers for similar reasons as you. for reasons of risk diversification, however, i will simply leave the portfolio with cornertrader running and build up my new positions with IB. fortunately, cornertrader has reduced its inactivity fee to CHF 10 per quarter for a few weeks now. I think CHF 40 per year is reasonable if you do nothing.

if you want to change all your positions i would prefer a transfer and not sell and buy again. however, i am not sure whether cross-border securities transfers only cost CHF 50 per position? with CT there are relatively high sales fees and an additional 0.5% currency exchange fee. it is also important that funds or shares in a specific currency have also been debited from the account of the respective currency; otherwise an automatic conversion with fees to CHF is made to the CHF account when selling.

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59

Happy to be schooled but not berated regarding my question.

I am doing my investing with UBS, 0.35% fee custody account. Have about 70k split evenly between IE00B6R52259 and IE00B5BMR087, both in CHF. The bank takes 1.3% per transaction. That’s 910 CHF spent so far to just buy these shares. Not insignificant but not a problem to me.

It’s something I agreed with myself to live with, it gives me peace of mind which I wouldn’t have if I had that amount in IBKR or any neobank. I have seen quite a bit of animosity towards traditional banks as brokers here but other than their fees and perhaps phone apps (which doesn’t bother me) I am not clear what else is there to look out for?

Besides the fees and US tilt is there something wrong with how I’ve allocated my money? And if so are we talking about efficiency gains or catastrophic problems?

60

Why wouldn’t you have that with IBKR?

It adds up over time, with 1 Mio., you already pay 3’500 a year, do this 10 years and you lost 35k.

That’s ridiculous, so to buy 1 Mio. and then sell it later when you need it, you pay 26k, that’s quite some money.

For tax reasons US funds are better than Irish funds when investing in US companies.

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61

I don’t see the latter listed in CHF at SIX (it is listed in USD at SIX). Do you trade at BX Swiss or am I missing something?

If you need a Swiss bank that has been around for a while for peace of mind, have you considered Swissquote? It was founded in 1996 and they got a banking license in 2000.

While Swissquote is also more expensive than IBKR, it can still be much less expensive than 0.35% p.a. and 1.3% per transaction, especially if you exclusively trade ETFs at SIX in CHF (from their fairly large list of CHF 9 flat fee ETFs).

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