I found out that my account is carried by IBKR UK Limited, not the IBKR LLC which is regulated by SEC and SPIC. Should I be worried? should I ask them to change to IBKR LLC instead? is there an advantage between IBKR LLC vs IBKR UK limited?

seems like IBKR LLC offers more protection.

Just to inform you guys to be careful when sending USD from IBKR to DBS USD FD accounts. Make sure the amount sent is above 5000 SGD all the time.

I encountered a painful experience of losing 1% of the money due to rejection of FD deposits by DBS as my 3.6k USD is less than 5k SGD last Thursday after the weaker US inflation figures...

Lesson is: Always leave yourself some room for currency fluctuations when you deposit USD in DBS FD accounts.

The minimum amount for USD deposits at DBS is 5k SGD or equivalent. (For UOB, it would be 5k of the deposit currency, i.e. 5k USD)
I was planning to follow this tip (first post of that page): https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/....6764389/page-4
So, no need to pay 10 SGD if you directly transfer into USD FD account. But your money will be stuck there for 1 month before you can transfer to My Account. You will earn 1 month USD interest in the mean time.

Reference: https://www.dbs.com.sg/personal/support/ban...nd-charges.html

For those of you seeking short-term (1-3 month) ultraliquid USD parking facility in IB, I found several US 1-3 month Treasury bill ETFs like BIL and SGOV.

Assume you adjust SMART routing to VLow (High volume exchange with lowest fee), you can get your trades executed with as low as 0.24 USD instead of the usual "0.35 USD". BIL is liquid but expense ratio is high at 0.14% p.a., SGOV's expense ratio is low but that is due to temporary fee rebate by BLK which would terminate on 30th June 2023 (after which it would be around 0.14-0.15% p.a., on par with BIL). Moreover, SGOV has about 6% asset exposure in its own institutional cash fund which has Treasury floating rate notes and introduces additional counterparty risks with banks like Citi, Credit Agricole etc. So, not truely "risk-free".

I did some IRR calculations and found that you can get returns of about 1.3% p.a. for the 2-month holding period, factoring 30% WHT for the monthly distributions and 0.24-0.35 USD commissions, charged twice (once during purchase, once during sell).

Much lower than contemporary 2-month UST yield, but better than holding everything on cash balance and let IB suck all your interests away I guess. After all, in terms of opportunity costs, there is nothing more "risk-free" than risk-free rates. So, in theory, as long as better than 0% p.a., one should bite.

No. Cause FD you are getting fixed 3.xx%. Etf over time will give you 8-9%p.a

Sent more than 5k SGD but still rejected... Looks like DBS don't accept transfers to FD account directly. So, park USD in BIL remains the most viable options for now.

10 USD charges...

Ya, 10 SGD. But my money is in, 10 USD deducted by JP Morgan the correspondent bank....

(check my earlier post, before yours).

If they charge me 1 plate of Char Kuey Teow that is ok. Now 10 USD is like 10 plates of Char Kuey Teow...  

Even if I can't get back 10 USD, I think clarifying correspondent bank charges are important as it's usually opaque (Most online info claim charges between 10-30 USD.)

Since not much opportunity cost is incurred for asking for charges info, not a lot of efforts are needed. Still doable for me.

I have done some cleanup to the charts (senior debt), should be more readable now.



You can assume Public Bank's CDS curve is somewhere between Maybank and MY government. UOB and OCBC's curves are about the same place as that of DBS and definitely higher than SG government's.

Eh, IBKR -> DBS Multiplier USD Account 7 USD inward TT charge.

https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/...#post-146716107

Why not 10?...

You can refer to post #1280

https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/4953197/+1279

Thanks for the research and information sharing as always TOS!

I don't use TWS at all so I have not tinkered with the routing at all, but it sure is interesting as hell to see my trade being routed to all these exotic places hahaha.

Still, I am really curious how is my fees derived. According to their fee charts, it feels like every trade scenario involving an EU stock should incur no less than one USD normally. But to be charged only 0.35 cents... I assume this is their fee's price floor for every transaction then.

Still really happy with the potential savings though. All the more reason to complete my trade during end of high liquidity days. Opens up to cheaper, more frequent cost averaging intervals too.

That's what I am trying to find out, ahahaha, I just started holding it at the start of the month. According to IBKR's CS, they have a partner that claw back WHT for them once a year if applicable, but they won't clarify if USFR is WHT-free.

Supposedly US treasuries ETF can mark their dividends to be qualified interest income with has no withholding tax levied, SGOV does so and IBKR partners will charge first refund later. Not sure if USFR enjoys this. Likely, though. Some other forumers were selling them right before ex-date to prevent WHT, but I want to try holding for one full year and see if I get the refund.

Conversation here: https://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...#entry107454145

Additional reading: (look for dividend and interest income)
https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-publication-519

Woah this I don't know. Upon further reading looks like no withholding is necessary in the first place.

https://www.ssga.com/library-content/produc...us-en-ssiit.pdf

Not sure if they apply the withholding due to ease of administration. You think can complain?

During the recent TD Ameritrade SG shutdown, I managed to get my account transferred to TD Ameritrade USA. However, I learnt that they do not allow foreign account holders to name any beneficiaries.

Upon checking with my Will executor, they said the repatriation of any assets from the US normally is quite troublesome and may take years and lot of costs involved. So now I am mulling closing out that account, bring back funds to Malaysia in USD and then open an IBKR SG account.