Withdrawing money from Interactive Brokers is actually relatively easy. Still, many questions were asked about this in my Turkish blog. I made a post to show them how it’s done. Today I will review this article and share it with you. I hope that you will find it helpful. Let’s start by identifying your bank account in the Interactive Brokers interface.
Withdrawing money from Interactive Brokers: identifying bank account
First, we select the “Transfer Funds” button from the left menu, and the following menu appears. From here, we press the “Make a Withdrawal” button.
In the next step, we determine which currency and method we will withdraw money from. As shown in the figure below, I chose the Turkish Lira.
When we choose the Turkish Lira, “Bank Wire” remains the only withdrawal method. Now we click “Connect Your Bank.”
As you can see from the figure below, you name your account that you will define for withdrawal and declare that it is a bank.
In the next step, you need to enter the country where your bank account is located and the IBAN number of your bank account.
When you enter your IBAN number, the information of the bank you have defined to withdraw money appears as follows.
Interactive Brokers asks you for confirmation of bank account information at this stage. It asks for your username and password as a security measure.
As shown in the figure below, enter your username and password and click the “Continue” button.
A verification code is coming to your phone.
You enter the verification code and continue.
A message appears, thanking you for the confirmation. You can end the account identification process by pressing “Finish.” Or you can start the money transfer process by clicking the “Create Transfer” button.
I chose to terminate and came back to the withdrawal page. As you can see below, my Turkish Lira and my previously used dollar account can now be used to withdraw defined money. Now I click on the “Select” button next to my Akbank demand TL account.
Withdrawing money from Interactive Brokers: withdrawal order entry
The bank information that I have defined appears in front of me. I am entering a trial amount of 100 TL to show you. Oops! “Maximum amount (0.00) exceeded” is displayed. 🙁 Now, let’s try to solve this problem.
Possible sources of the problem
First, I look at the questions and answers about withdrawing money from the “Support” part of the system. The first explanation is that if you are trading in a currency other than your base currency, you may have exceeded the limit for that currency. Secondly, suppose your IBKR account is a cash account type, and you have recently converted money. In that case, it takes at least two business days for the transaction to be finalized. Finally, if you have recently deposited, you may have been caught within the time limit required to withdraw that money.
So, how can we learn how much money we can withdraw from our account? The answer to this question is that we can find the answer to this question under “Available For Withdrawal” in the “Transfer Funds” section of our customer account. However, I did not see such an interface.
Instead, I looked at past transactions. As you can see from the figure below, I came across the record of the TL transfer I made the day before. The note for this transaction clearly states that I cannot withdraw this money before 22 December 2020. So I understood the problem.
Converting from USD to TL
Let’s convert some dollars to TL and try again to learn the process. I entered an order to convert 15 dollars to Turkish Lira from the “Convert Currency” option.
The order has been fulfilled. I tried to withdraw money again. However, I still encountered the same error. Because I define my account as a cash account. Thus, it will take a few business days for it to be transferred to my account as TL due to the money conversion process I have performed in the market. I mean the T+2 rule.
Still problem not solved?
To be sure, I talked to IBKR’s customer representative using the live chat facility in the support section. You can use this method if you encounter a problem you cannot solve. However, they try not to use this option as much as possible because labor is expensive in the US. That’s why they direct you to questions and answers prepared as much as possible. As you can see below, the customer representative says that 1.000 TL has just been deposited, which is why I can’t withdraw money.
When I say that I have converted money but cannot transfer it, it says that my money conversion process will end on December 21. So then my cash (TL) will be deposited in my account. He adds that we can check our transactions in the “Reports/Statements/Trade Confirmation” section.
I click on the “Reports” tab at the top of the client interface. Then I click on the arrow next to “Trade Confirmation,” as shown in the picture below. I got it to generate a report dated today in the popup.
As a result of the report query, I see the following transaction. Accordingly, the “Settle Date” is December 21. In other words, TL will be deposited in my account on this date after my order is concluded. As additional information, let me tell you this: the commission charged for money conversion is $2. I paid $2 for both $2,000 and $15.
As a result, I could not withdraw money as I do not have TL in my account. However, the customer representative said I would not have any problems with the withdrawal process if I had TL in my account. So withdrawing money from Interactive Brokers is not easy for a beginner. Nevertheless, I tried once more after I had waited one week.
At last, I succeeded
As of Monday, December 21, I tried to make an actual withdrawal. As you can see from the picture below, 115.77 TL appears in my account. I clicked the “Create Withdrawal” button to transfer an amount of approximately 15 TL to my account in Turkey.
Username and password information was asked for an identity check. After entering this information, another password came to my phone.
After entering the password sent to the phone as a text message, my withdrawal request was approved by IBKR. In other words, we have seen by trying that I can transfer Turkish Lira to my bank account in Turkey, free of charge, once a month from IBKR.
I hope this post will be helpful for you. See you soon.