How to transfer funds between your bank account and your Interactive Brokers account via an ACH initiated at your bank.

Enter KB567 into the search engine for additional information regarding ACH deposits.

Generally, an investor changing jobs or leaving the workforce may utilize either a Direct Rollover or Indirect Rollover election to continue their retirement savings outside of their employer-sponsored retirement plan.   The Direct Rollover method transfers the assets directly from the retirement plan into the investor's IRA, avoiding the 20% mandatory IRS withholding.  No assets are transferred directly to the IRA owner. This option to transfer retirement assets has no age limitations.

Cash and securities held within an employer-sponsored retirement plan, such as a 401(k) or 403(b) plan, may be re-located elsewhere, either in an IRA account or another employer-sponsored retirement plan.  The plan administrator is required to provide a reasonable direct method of asset transfer.  Completion of a Direct Rollover form issued by the administrator may be required, in some cases.  Therefore, it is important to check with the plan administrator.

For those transfers that require a broker-supplied Direct Rollover form, Interactive Brokers provides a convenient Direct Rollover Transfer In Authorization form.  Completing and mailing the form directly to Interactive Brokers will begin the transfer of cash balances only into a Traditional IRA, Rollover IRA, or SEP-IRA.  Non-cash direct rollovers are currently not available.

Interactive Brokers will forward the Direct Rollover request to the plan administrator for processing.  Funds may be transferred by either wire transfer or check directly to Interactive Brokers.

To initiate a Direct Rollover from your retirement plan, go to the Funds Management section of the Account Management Menu.  Choose Cash Transfers for this Cash Deposit Transaction and select the method Direct Rollover (IRA) to initiate the process.  Contact the Funds & Banking Group with any additional questions.

In compliance with Treasury Department Circular 230, unless stated to the contrary, any information contained in this article was not intended or written to be used and cannot be used for the purpose of avoiding tax penalties that may be imposed on any taxpayer.

A full ACATS transfer request will generally be completed or settled anywhere between from 4 to 7 business days. The actual time which any one request may take depends upon a number of factors, most notably being the speed at which the delivering broker responds to the initial request, the ability of the two brokers to successfully corroborate the customer’s account details (e.g., account title, account number, taxpayer identification number, etc.), whether the list of account assets requires adjustment due to the inclusion of securities not eligible to be carried by the receiving broker, and/or if the effect of the transfer would be to violate the receiving broker’s credit policy (i.e., create a margin deficiency).

Instruments handled by the ACATS system include the following asset classes: equities, options, corporate bonds, municipal bonds, mutual funds and cash. It should be noted; however, that ACATS eligibility does not guarantee that any given security will transfer as each receiving broker maintains its own requirements as to which asset classes as well as securities within a particular asset class it will accept.

Account holders are encouraged to use the Contract Search link on IB’s homepage to assess transfer eligibility prior to initiating a full account transfer request.