Transfer portfolio from Degiro to IB (how to?)

Mustachioed · March 24, 2019, 11:21am

After opening an IB account, I clicked on “Fund Your Account” and “Transfer Securities” in order to transfer my positions from Degiro to IB. As mentioned in other threads, I’m then confronted with several options (ACATS, ATON, etc.) and chose “International Assets”, which appears to be the correct option given that Degiro is indeed included in the “Contra Broker” drop-down menu.

But then I’m asked to provide an Account Number and Account Title, both of which are required but neither of which I can find on Degiro. I’ve checked my accounts information, 2018 annual report, etc. to no avail.

The page on IB also says that I have to “coordinate a matching transfer instruction with your carrying broker. Ensure that the instructions are sent to your carrying broker and follow your carrying broker’s required procedures or guidelines”, none of which I can actually find on Degiro.

tl;dr: has anyone successfully transferred their positions from Degiro to IB? If so, could you please share the steps you took to do this?

Double_A · March 25, 2019, 8:24am

Transfers are generally pretty expensive, like ~100€ per position. So depending on how big your portfolio is, it might be worth to just sell anything and transfer the money yourself. There will be some spread-loss, transaction fees, and taxes but it might be less.

Mustachioed · March 25, 2019, 1:18pm

Thanks. In my case it’s a one-fund portfolio on Degiro, so probably simpler to just transfer it (if I can figure out how). It’s indeed good advice though especially for others who might also be considering a switch in light of Degiro no longer selling US-domiciled ETFs.

Gesk · March 25, 2019, 2:48pm

Given the high transfer fees (found on reddit) depending in which exchange your positions are, you would have to calculate what is the best. Is there necessarily taxes that apply on top if you sell? Assuming it’s your only sell of the year and you were holding most of it for a while.

Strabor · March 25, 2019, 3:30pm

Contact DeGiro by E-Mail. You get a form to sign and sending in. With this info, go to IB and fill in their web form.

Mustachioed · April 21, 2019, 2:47pm

To follow-up on my points above in case anyone else is doing the same: “Account Number” is your Degiro username and “Account Title” is your name (i.e., name of the Degiro account holder).

@Strabor is correct. You then send an email to Degiro at customers@degiro.ch and they provide an “Outbound Transfer” form which you then complete and send back to transfers@degiro.co.uk along with the Interactive Brokers document that’s generated once you complete the process described above.

So while this all sounds fairly straightforward, I then received a fairly worrying email from Interactive Brokers three weeks (!) after submitting my documents to Degiro:

Unfortunately Degiro is not cooperating. Despite having a transfer order from you they were requiring additional information and documents from us which we have provided. But now they are not responding anymore despite several reminders. Unfortunately there is nothing more we can do since Degiro slowed down the process and made it difficult by requiring more and more documents and not responding now. Please contact them and advise to reply to us. It would probably help and they would cooperate if you could put some pressure on them.

So in case anyone is on the fence regarding whether or not to use Degiro, I would strongly suggest that you don’t.

Mustachioed · May 1, 2019, 9:45am

So, a little over 5 weeks (!) later and my portfolio has finally been transferred. Interactive Brokers kept me informed every step of the way via their messaging platform which was really great service (by no means do I have a large account).

Regarding their interactions with Degiro, Interactive Brokers summarised it as follows:

Unfortunately their process is very slow, complicated and not up-to-date

This echoes my experience as well.

-Mustachioed

Gesk · May 1, 2019, 10:40am

Good to hear, did you have to pay any fees on IB side?