Editing Interactive Brokers (section)

==Select business and consumer practices==

===Arbitration agreements===
IB customers can request trading permissions to access futures markets based in the United States. The process for obtaining these permissions can be completed through IB's public-facing customer portal. Customers must log in, navigate to the appropriate settings, review the provided documentation, and complete a web form to electronically 'sign' the agreement. When selecting futures trading permissions, customers will encounter a '''Futures Arbitration Agreement''' among the documents they are required to acknowledge.  

The agreement may include text such as:<blockquote>You need not sign this agreement to open or maintain an account with IB. See 17 CFR 166.5</blockquote>Note that as of 2015-01-15, the text of 17 CFR 166.5 includes paragraph (c)(1):<ref>https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-17/chapter-I/part-166/section-166.5</ref><blockquote>Signing the agreement must not be made a condition for the customer to utilize the services offered by the Commission registrant.</blockquote>and portions of paragraph (c)(2):<blockquote>If the agreement is contained as a clause or clauses of a broader agreement, the customer must separately endorse the clause or clauses containing the cautionary language and provisions specified in this section.</blockquote>However, IB's online trading-permission web form does not allow customers to separately endorse the 'cautionary language and provisions' from the 'settlement procedure' (e.g., the Futures Arbitration Agreement).

As a result, applicable IB customers may not realize that they can open futures transactions without agreeing to the Futures Arbitration Agreement. They may also be unaware that IB's systems impose a 1-contract trading restriction on accounts that do not agree to the agreement. Furthermore, customers may not recognize that this behavior by IB's systems conflicts with 17 CFR 166.5(c)(1), which they might have believed would protect them from such restrictions.

===Interest rates charged===
IB may be charging customers interest rates that exceed the maximum allowable rates set by statutory laws in certain U.S. jurisdictions. For example, the 2024 Maryland Code, Commercial Law § 12-102, specifies a maximum interest rate of 6% per annum.<ref>https://law.justia.com/codes/maryland/commercial-law/title-12/subtitle-1/section-12-102/</ref> However, IB does not explicitly state that it limits its interest rates to 6% for customers residing in Maryland.

It is worth noting that other brokerage firms publicly advertise significantly higher (and less favorable) interest rates to their customers, which may provide context for IB's practices. Nonetheless, the lack of clarity regarding compliance with state-specific interest rate laws raises questions about transparency and adherence to legal requirements.<ref>https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=44427</ref>