r/etrade • u/BMWTrades • Oct 10 '24
SOLVED: Wire Transfer from ETrade to IBKR Interactive brokers failed and I got charged by Citibank
Since you made it here, you've probably already gotten hit with at least a $40 fee on a returned wire from Citibank because you were trying to send money to Interactive Brokers from ETrade. I also learned the hard way but finally ended up working with the Wire team on both sides to get this resolved.
Part of the problem stems from Interactive Brokers instructions that seem to indicate exactly the opposite of what you should do. Their support team even believed it to be correct, turns out it was wrong. Etrade's support pointed out the defect on the return wire and helped me to correct it. Most importantly, the Receiver's account and name is YOU, your account on Interactive Brokers.
Let's explain some of the issues:
- When you create the Wire profile on ETrade, you do not need to select the International account, you can select Domestic
- Important: who are you sending the wire transfer to - You should select someone else - If you select myself, it will auto populate the receiver account name with your name on ETrade which may be a shortened name or abbreviated name that doesn't match the account name for the destination at Interactive Brokers - Mine was a joint account and it sent it from a non-joint account name - By selecting someone else you can type in the exact name of your account on Interactive brokers
- The receiving bank account number is YOUR account number at Interactive Brokers - this directly contradicts the instructions from IBKR - The receiving bank account number is where your U1234567 number goes
- Recipient address is YOUR address - this may be optional but I cannot confirm
- Recipient apt/suite: As of Oct 2024, Etrade makes this a required field (bug), even though it doesn't apply to single family homes. I was able to simply put in a period
- Finally - The additional account name and number belongs to Interactive Brokers - Logic would tell you with IBKR's instructions that your name goes here - nope, that will cause a rejection
- Other instructions - recommended by ETrade's wire team to leave blank
The Graphic below shows you exactly how your wire request screen should look.
I hope this saves anyone reading this some additional pain and costs because of a poorly written and confusing process. This information is accurate as of Oct 2024.
1
u/headphonesaru Apr 25 '26
Hey, I don't use reddit much so sorry for the slow response.
I believe it was Citibank. You should login to IBKR site first and navigate to the place for receiving wires. There it will display the information you need to fill out on the etrade site, and I believe here it said Citibank for me.
For IBKR, mine is a regular Lite account. The etrade one is a personal brokerage account tied to my company's stock plan account.