Interactive Brokers Makes Waves With Inactivity Fee Elimination

The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

For 43 years Interactive Brokers has been serving clients from all over the world with access to a suite of investment products. The online broker has always had a singular mission to provide lowest cost access to global trading markets in order to maximize returns. They were the first online broker to offer $0 commissions with their IBKR Lite, while their IB SmartRouting provides more active investors with institutional-level pricing to lower their overall costs with a small commission.

What happened: Effective July 1, 2021 investors can now access IBKR Pro pricing without worrying about the frequency of their trades. Why? Because Interactive Brokers eliminated their inactivity fee. The fee was $20 per month if you had less than $2,000 in your account and if you didn't generate a minimum of $20 in commissions. You would be charged $10 if your account exceeded $2,000 but you traded less frequently. 

Why it matters: Interactive Brokers was already deemed one of the lower-cost alternatives despite the inactivity fee but now it just got a whole lot more competitive. 

It remains to be seen how other online brokers will match Interactive Brokers overall low-cost offering across stocks, options, futures, funds and bonds, and especially, their industry-low margin loan rates, now that this latest cost barrier has been removed. 

Ready to learn more about Interactive Brokers? Read our comprehensive Interactive Brokers Review.

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.