Funding IBKR using Wise Multi-currency account

“The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.” — Phillip Fisher

If you plan to travel overseas soon for holiday, I advise you not to bring along your credit card, instead, you should get a Wise Debit Card. You can learn more about Wise Debit card HERE.

I like Wise for its multicurrency account too because I can receive payments likes a local in 10 currencies. The supported currencies include USD, GBP,SGD, NZD, AUD, Euro,Turkish Lira and MYR.

Since I still receive a small amount of USD and GBP from my Amazon books, I find Wise multi currency account very useful.

Another Way of funding IBKR

I talked about ways to fund IBKR in my previous posts HERE, HERE and HERE. The only problem Malaysians facing during the process of purchasing ETFs is funding our brokerage accounts. Since Wise offers multi currency account, you can use this account to fund your IBKR.

Wise multi currency is being offered to Malaysians recently. You can use the account to receive payment as well as sending payments in multiple currencies. These are the steps to fund IBKR using your Wise multi currency account.

Step 1: Click on USD account icon and fund your USD account with USD 100.

The conversion rate is MYR 438.97 ( including fees of MYR 1.97).

Step 2: Transfer MYR to Wise Malaysian account

I find the easiest way to transfer your money to Wise account is using FPX. Many months ago, the fees of using FPX is slightly higher than manual transfer but it is no more the case at this moment.

After MYR 438.97 is transferred to Wise Malaysian account, I receive USD 100 ( I have USD 3.11 in my account before this) immediately in my account immediately shows that USD 100

Step 3: Inform IBKR that you are going to make a deposit

The steps afterward are quite similar. You need to log in to your IKBR account and inform IBKR you are going to make a deposit. IBKR US account details will be given during the process. I learn that there are two IBKR US account, one is JPMorgan Chase and another one is a Citi bank account. If you happen to be allocated a JP Morgan account, the ACH Routing number is 021000021 and the account number is 633736902.

Step 4: Send your USD account money to IBKR

As you can see from the picture above, click on ‘Send’ button to complete your transaction. Remember to include your IBKR account number in the reference column.

Malaysians generally do not invest in foreign currency ETFs and stocks due to the difficulty of funding their brokerage account. And if you are the few who opt for local brokerage to buy foreign stocks, the transaction cost is too high unless you make big purchases every time.

Conclusion

Friends are asking me whether I am worried about the current stock market. Everything seems to be tearing apart. The market is crashing, bond market is melting and the cryptocurrency is burning. The recession is inevitable and many investors are worried about hyperinflation and stagflation.

As I said before, you can’t predict the future. As long as you invest for long term with adequate emergency fund to weather any incoming storm, you are fine.

The best time to invest is today and remember, timing the market is a futile endeavour, stay invested at all times!