Interactive brokers - wire transfers - too easy!

In a previous post on interactive brokers I had mentioned how difficult it was to both set up the account and also that it took 3 days to fund the account which I viewed as a real downside to using the interactive brokers platform. However it turns out that I was wrong.

The 3 day transfer of funds period appears to only be for the first transfer into the account. I transferred in funds yesterday in the afternoon and found that it had already been credited to my account before open of business today which I was very impressed with. It takes away one of the biggest downsides to using interactive brokers.

For all the Australian readers of this blog - one of the things you need to get your head around is the terminology. Interactive brokers recommends using wire transfers to transfer money into your account. If you look up wire transfer with your bank (I checked NAB and CBA) they say that they will charge you $90. However this is only to transfer to interational banks. If you fund your account in AUD (as I do) then you only need to do a netbank transfer to Interactive Broker's Sydney branch (they give you the details after completing the pre-transfer form on the accounts management page).