Hold your RRSP at Interactive Brokers!

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supremespunch
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Interactive Brokers RRSP

Post by supremespunch »

I want to post my experience with Interactive Brokers' RRSP and encourage others to share comments about their experiences.

I opened a taxable Interactive Brokers account in 2006. I had the account for only a short while when I had to switch to a different brokerage at insistence of my employer (a financial institution). In 2011, after changing employment, I switched back to Interactive Brokers. At the time Interactive did not have an RRSP. Then that changed, perhaps about one year ago, certainly less than two. (The time of this writing is early 2016).

Around November 2015 I looked around a bit on this website for reviews and comments on experiences of Interactive Brokers' RRSP. There weren't many posts on the subject. Perhaps none. I would have to be a test case.

I moved my RRSP from Scotia iTrade to Interactive Brokers in December 2015. This was a transfer-in-kind. As with most processes at Interactive Brokers, you do it online. There are many disclosures and agreements to read. They don't have it all in a single document. They don't provide a way to easily save a copy of their disclosures and agreements. If you were to do this yourself, you would end up with many PDFs and other documents of a different form, perhaps many of them copy-and-pastes from browser windows, and perhaps even some Word files. It's a horrible mess. I suggested to them to make it a single document that can be saved but I would speculate it might be a long while before they implement that. If you join Interactive, please suggest they fix this.

To get around this problem, perhaps you might want to print all the documents, sign them, run the stack through an auto-feeding photocopier, and FedEx the agreements. That's how I did it in 2006 but I'm not sure if that option is still available. I would encourage anybody that has storage space for a stack of paper to do it this way.

On the transfer online form, you have to identify the brokerage of your existing account. To make the transfer of assets go smoothly be sure you know how Interactive Broker's identifies your brokerage because most companies have various subsidiaries. "Scotia iTrade"' is certainly the brand but the actual entity might have a different name from Interactive Broker's perspective. Have your existing brokerage account statement in hand and then call Interactive Brokers if in doubt.

Within a few days holdings were transferred. Transfers of holdings appear as ATON transfers in the Interactive statement. The cash amount appears as an ACATS transfer. The ATON and ACATS transfers were dated Dec 23.

It being December, some holdings were bound to pay distributions or dividends. Additional cash amounts were remitted to Interactive Brokers on Dec 30 and Jan 12. These are also ACATS transfers. Pay attention to this. If your previous broker doesn't provide statements after your account is closed, how would you know some dividends came in? What if your previous broker deleted your login?

If you already have a taxable account at Interactive and want to add an RRSP you might want to have "linked" accounts. This is what Interactive calls it when the same login access both accounts. Since market price quote subscriptions are on a per login basis using the same login probably saves you money. To have a linked account, do not create an RRSP from the marketing parts of their website. Instead, login to your taxable account and call them and somebody can tell you how to create a linked RRSP.

That's all I have to report for now.
crimsondr
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Re: Hold your RRSP at Interactive Brokers!

Post by crimsondr »

I was so excited to see IB now has RRSP accounts but then totally disappointed when I saw the $50 admin fee. Would have been better if they waived it at a minimum balance...
minimalist
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Re: Hold your RRSP at Interactive Brokers!

Post by minimalist »

Just wanted to confirm the total fees at IB for RSPs and TFSAs. (If you already have these at IB your info. would be especially helpful).

Assuming you have less than 100K in RSPs and TFSAs, would you be paying:

1. CAD 50 Annual RSP administration fee (0 for TFSA)

+

2. USD 10 per month in minimum activity fees = USD 120/yr ?

So this total approx. CAD 158 at current rates for each TFSA and CAD 208 for each RSP based on my calculations. This drops to CAD 50 for RSPs and CAD 0 for TFSA once you hit the magic mark of USD 100K or CAD132K per account. This could take many years for those with relatively small account sizes.
supremespunch
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Re: Hold your RRSP at Interactive Brokers!

Post by supremespunch »

In answer to the question about the RRSP account fee is the following.

My Interactive Brokers RRSP fee is 12.50 CAD per quarter year but this might depend upon the size of the account assets.

At this time I can comment on my experience with this account. I've had this account since Dec 2015 if I recall the date correctly. In this account I don't have to pay the currency exchange spread because a dividend remains in the currency in which it was received until I decide where to invest it. The "fixed" trading fees for stocks, ETFs, and options are very low but I switched to "tiered" fees and they are even lower in my experience. Stock quotes services are 1.50 USD per month for NYSE and 1.50 USD per month for NASDAQ.
travesty
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Re: Hold your RRSP at Interactive Brokers!

Post by travesty »

Just in case anyone was wondering, I confirmed today with chat that the $12.50 quarterly account maintenance fee for RRSPs isn't waived at any asset level. Here's the direct quote:
$12.50 quarterly maintenance fee for RSP is not waived under any circumstance.
The $10 minimum monthly commissions are waived at an asset level of 100K USD (or equivalent in other currencies), but that occurs per-account. So if you have 500K in your RRSP and 50K in your TFSA, you'll still pay the $10 fee in your TFSA.
John47
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Re: Hold your RRSP at Interactive Brokers!

Post by John47 »

travesty wrote: 19 Jun 2018 17:09 Just in case anyone was wondering, I confirmed today with chat that the $12.50 quarterly account maintenance fee for RRSPs isn't waived at any asset level. Here's the direct quote:
$12.50 quarterly maintenance fee for RSP is not waived under any circumstance.
The $10 minimum monthly commissions are waived at an asset level of 100K USD (or equivalent in other currencies), but that occurs per-account. So if you have 500K in your RRSP and 50K in your TFSA, you'll still pay the $10 fee in your TFSA.
Thanks!

Do you know if they cover transfer fees from other brokers?

If you have a RSSP, a TFSA and a non-registered account in which to make margin purchases,
all three of which hold less than $US100K,
you will be charged $10 per account per month?
travesty
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Re: Hold your RRSP at Interactive Brokers!

Post by travesty »

John47 wrote: 04 Aug 2018 20:49
Do you know if they cover transfer fees from other brokers?
They do not. They also do not charge transfer fees themselves, and they told me that's why they don't cover the fees from other institutions (I don't think this argument necessarily makes sense other than the pleasing symmetry: you offer to cover xfer out fees as the receiving institution to reduce the friction for clients transferring which in principle independent of if you decide to offer the perk of to transfer out fees).
If you have a RSSP, a TFSA and a non-registered account in which to make margin purchases,
all three of which hold less than $US100K,
you will be charged $10 per account per month?
Yes there is a $10 minimum monthly commission for each account less than the minimum. This is slightly different than just being charged that amount: any commissions you do incur are subtracted out, so if you spend $6.00 in commissions in a month you'll only be charged an additional $4 to get to $10 for the month. FX commissions are included.
John47
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Re: Hold your RRSP at Interactive Brokers!

Post by John47 »

Thanks for the reply!
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