‘Pay with Wise’ is now live on Interactive Brokers’ platform to streamline account funding 

Wise and Interactive Brokers have joined forces to simplify funding IBKR investment accounts.

The online brokerage firm, which offers trading of stocks and other investable securities in 150 global markets from a single account, allows clients to fund accounts and trade assets in 26 currencies. However, some clients trade currencies that are different from their local currency, which means they need to first convert their money. 

With the new collaboration, IBKR has integrated Wise payment capabilities into its platform that enable its clients to use the ‘Pay with Wise’ feature. This feature allows IBKR clients to top up their trading account directly from their bank or an existing Wise account and convert currency at the mid-market exchange rate, without unforeseen costs. 

I spoke to Steve Naudé, head of Wise platform, and Steve Sanders, executive VP of marketing and product development at Interactive Brokers, about the role this integration plays in today’s economic environment and the impact it will have on traders.

How did Wise and IBKR build this integration?

Steve Naudé, Wise: Wise Platform offers an open API integration that can be natively embedded into the infrastructure of enterprises, banks, and large business platforms. This integration allows Interactive Brokers customers to leverage the power of Wise to offer customers low-cost and fast deposits from the country they live in, to their Interactive Brokers account. This is all achieved without having to leave the Interactive Brokers website or application.

After initial discussions and aligning on the optimal integration path, Interactive Brokers technical teams were able to quickly understand the Wise Platform APIs. Within weeks a functional test integration was built in the Wise testing environment. The integration was supported by the Wise Platform delivery team every step of the way -- from design through to build, testing, and go-live.

How will this integration add value to IBKR clients? 

Steve Sanders, IBKR: Clients of Interactive Brokers no longer have to operate in two different portals (wise.com and ibkr.com) to transfer from their account at Wise to their account at Interactive Brokers. Interactive Brokers already offers clients the ability to fund accounts and trade in up to 26 currencies – and investors that will benefit most from the integration are located in countries where Wise accepts local payments, but Interactive Brokers does not.

What role does this integration play in today’s economic market and the impact it will have on everyday traders? 

Steve Sanders, IBKR: From a high-level point of view, Wise is a cross-border money transmitter while Interactive Brokers is a global automated electronic broker. And the services offered by both complement each other. An investor seeking to move money and invest in stocks, for example, can now come to Wise and Interactive Brokers to accomplish both.

How does the Wise integration help reduce transfer fees to move funds between banks and trading accounts for IBKR clients? 

Steve Naudé, Wise: Not only does our collaboration make it cheaper for Interactive Brokers clients to top up their accounts and provide a better return on their investment, but we have also made the top-up process much quicker. Over 50% of international payments sent over the Wise network arrive instantly in under 20 seconds.  

Notably, this is an integration that started because Interactive Brokers clients were already using Wise. We saw an opportunity to make this a streamlined process for our mutual customers, as well as to help new ones. This is a core belief of Wise Platform — we should put the payment experience into the tools consumers are already using to give them the best experience possible.

What role embedded finance plays to improve the international payments experience? 

Steve Naudé, Wise: International payments are one of the harder and more costly problems for banks and financial institutions to solve, and often it isn’t a top priority, which is why embedded FX solutions are so useful. 

Wise has spent the last decade building a next-generation cross-border payments network that allows money to move around the world faster and cheaper than it does via traditional banks. Building this infrastructure required Wise to secure licenses around the world, adhere to a number of regulatory requirements and develop efficient and robust protections for our customers. Building a similar infrastructure would take other financial and non-financial entities a significant amount of time and money.

Wise Platform offers a solution where banks and businesses can leverage ready-made APIs that do not require an overhaul of existing infrastructure and can work alongside existing systems. This enables our 60+ partners globally to bring enhanced FX products and services to customers and allows those same customers to move money globally with convenience and ease.