To be fair, it’s likely that IBKR would have restricted or disabled login to his account.
Hello, this is my first post here. Not on the topic directly, but I was attracted to this lively discussion. My concern is that IBKR, as opposed to some other large brokerages, does not compensate in case of fraud, as it has been clear from this discussion. I raised the question a few months ago on the Bogleheads forum, as it is apparently a weakness of the IBKR.
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=421552
I would like to point out that, for instance, Vanguard US explicitly states that they would compensate in case of fraud:
We’ll reimburse you the amount taken from your Vanguard account in an unauthorized online transaction on vanguard.com if you’ve followed the steps described in the Your responsibilities section https://investor.vanguard.com/ts/pdf/vanguard_security_promise-fraud.pdf
Unfortunately, as European investors we don’t have access to Vanguard US and are left with less optimal or generous options. My personal dilemma is whether to to go on with IBIE (I am Dutch) and invest in VT, or rely more on large Dutch banks where I am limited to the UCITS products and AUM fees, that in total cost some 0,5% per year more. But I believe the Dutch banks compensate in case of fraud if it is not due to your gross negligence.
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Sidenote: would IBIE let you buy VT anyway?
(Also I thought Netherland had some fund with no tax leakage from US dividends, but that’s kinda off topic for this forum)
Yes, it does, when my put option expires:) For me it is not a huge problem to buy VT by selling a put option, but indeed it is not possible to buy VT directly on ARCA.
Yes, that’s correct, we have access to Northern Trust Dutch-domiciled funds that mostly avoid leakage of DWT. But NT funds have active ESG screens, I prefer to avoid them.
That’s the important part. And I’m sure that Vanguard also would not reimburse if someone gets access to your account and does activities from there, they’ll argue that according to this section this person was “authorized”. Believe me, such large institutions have enough measures in their repetoire to avoid paying in most cases.
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I have a feeling that IBKR is more positioned to serve professional investors, or at least active ones. Vanguard, by its nature, is serving retail, so they look like to be more inclined to be lenient. But anyway, Vanguard US is of no reach for the European investor.
In my case the system banks have an advantage: they’re local, which makes it easier to deal with them. If the total costs would be the same between IBKR and banks, I would not bother with IBKR, but alas the banks are expensive, so IBKR makes sense cost-wise.
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Postfinance has an insurance against phishing but I can’t find the link and I’m not sure it’s also valid for their trading account.
Even though I understand concerns over IBKR. I was wondering if there has been any publicly reported (and confirmed) incident of data leak, financial fraud or mass hacking for IBKR?
I wonder if with the arrival of SIC5 (instant payments for retail customers), brokers like Swissquote are required to offer deposit/withdrawal services before or after executing a securities/ETF purchase order, or if it’s only account-to-account transfers.
Additionally , what about IBKR? Will the arrival of SIC5 also enable instant transfers to and from IBKR?
The whole discussion led me to think about transferring a part of the assets to my main bank, ZKB.
AAA rating, state guarantee (unlimited), etc. - but this comes with a fee of 0.4% p.a. They know that they are probably the safest bank out there and cannot/will not change the coniditions (I am a too poor for them anyway, haha 
).
But when thinking about having the assets safe with CH jurisdication, I can imagine to hold it there. No purchases, but holding. Maybe in far future selling some shares, but that’s it.
I will probably close my UK account at IBRK and will continue with the US account, buy further stuff and transfer some assets once I hit a higher range.
Also thought about Saxo (Geely holding possesses roughly 49% of it), SQ (but just closed the account with them due to inactivity) and PostFinance. But I will probably stick with ZKB, since I have already an existing relationship with them. Buying securities at IBRK and transferring them regularly to ZKB, I could live with that.
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@xerox5003 What is wrong with SQ? they have much lower custody fees and also 100% Swiss.
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Nothing wrong with it, also taking them into account.
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How were you able to open an account at IB US? What are the advantages of US vs. UK?
IBRK recently started to ask you, if you are going to trade cryptocurrencies. If so, you can open an account with the US entity. See starting here: Buying crypto for Swiss residents [2023] - #65 by xerox5003
Edit: it seems, that the pros/cons are the same, as for UK and US. The only advantage is, you can trade stuff you normally need a KID (e.g. IBIT).
@naman.1 the posts in reddit linked above say the following:
- “I have been informed that it is not just with me but a lot of other people were also impacted as their MFA was hacked”
Q) Who informed you “that a lot of other people were also impacted as the MFA was hacked”?
- “someone hacked my username and password including MFA. That day, I wasn’t receiving any codes and the hacker was somehow was able to hack the MFA.”
Q) Any idea how they hacked the MFA? For example did they steal your phone or somehow hack your phone number?
I recently changed phone - iirc the transfer of MFA to the new phone was done via sms as per IB guide here. Is that how they did it?
Ibkr representative told multiple customers impacted and security teams called me couple of times of this incident and how they are resolving this.
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Any idea from your side or from IB how they hacked the MFA?
For example did they steal your phone / SIM or somehow hack your phone number so they could move the MFA to another device ?
Unfortunately in German, but this is a pretty nice overview, how the assets at IBRK are protected.
They disabled the account for 10 days when acoountbeas hacked.
How it is possible multiple users reporting same issue of money siphoning to different accounts.
Ibkr was blaming me you had weak policies on phone or laptop however it never happened to me in 10 years on any other app where mfa was hacked.
I suspect it would be done by ibkr person who knows about security.
How it is possible mfa is hacked, user name and password as well. No notification sent.
Sepa payment was done in milli seconds and money went overseas how??
So many questions ibkr was not able to answer me
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