Each question on the questionnaire must be answered in order to have a non-professional designation. As exchanges require positive confirmations of proof for non-professional designations, an incomplete or unclear Non-Professional Questionnaire will result in a Professional designation until the status can be confirmed. 

If the status should change, please contact the helpdesk.

Explanation of questions:

1)    Commercial & Business purposes

a)    Do you receive financial information (including news or price data concerning securities, commodities and other financial instruments) for your business or any other commercial entity?

Explanation: Are you receiving and using the market data for use on behalf of a company or other organization aside from using the data on this account for personal use?

b)    Are you conducting trading of any securities, commodities or forex for the benefit of a corporation, partnership, professional trust, professional investment club or other entity?

Explanation: Are you trading for yourself only or are you trading on behalf of an organization (Ltd, LLC, GmbH, Co., LLP, Corp.)?

c)    Have you entered into any agreement to (a) share the profit of your trading activities or (b) receive compensation for your trading activities?

Explanation: Are you being compensated to trade or are you sharing profits from your trading activities with a third party entity or individual?

d)    Are you receiving office space, and equipment or other benefits in exchange for your trading or work as a financial consultant to any person, firm or business entity?

Explanation: Are you being compensated in any way for your trading activity by a third party, not necessarily by being paid in currency.

2)    Act in a capacity

a)    Are you currently acting in any capacity as an investment adviser or broker dealer?

Explanation: Are you being compensated to manage third party assets or compensated to advise others on how to manage their assets?

b)    Are you engaged as an asset manager for securities, commodities or forex?         
 

Explanation: Are you being compensated to manage securities, commodities, or forex?

c)     Are you currently using this financial information in a business capacity or for managing your employer’s or company’s assets?

Explanation: Are you using data at all for a commercial purposes specifically to manage your employer and/or company assets?

d)    Are you using the capital of any other individual or entity in the conduct of your trading?

Explanation: Are there assets of any other entity in your account other than your own?

3)    Distribute, republish or provide data to any other party

a)    Are you distributing, redistributing, publishing, making available or otherwise providing any financial information from the service to any third party in any manner?

Explanation: Are you sending any data you receive from us to another party in any way, shape, or form?

4)    Qualified professional securities / futures trader

a)    Are you currently registered or qualified as a professional securities trader with any security agency, or with any commodities or futures contract market or investment adviser with any national or state exchange, regulatory authority, professional association or recognized professional body? ^{i, ii}
YES☐             NO☐

i) Examples of Regulatory bodies include, but are not limited to,

• US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
• US Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)
• UK Financial Service Authority (FSA)
• Japanese Financial Service Agency (JFSA)

ii) Examples of Self-Regulatory Organization (SROs) include, but are not limited to:

• US NYSE
• US FINRA
• Swiss VQF 

IB provides a feature which allows account holders to check what impact, if any, an order will have upon the projected Exposure Fee. The feature is intended to be used prior to submitting the order to provide advance notice as to the fee and allow for changes to be made to the order prior to submission in order to minimize or eliminate the fee.

The feature is enabled by right-clicking on the order line at which point the Order Preview window will open. This window will contain a link titled "Check Exposure Fee Impact" (see red highlighted box in Exhibit I below).

Exhibit I

Clicking the link will expand the window and display the Exposure fee, if any, associated with the current positions, the change in the fee were the order to be executed, and the total resultant fee upon order execution (see red highlighted box in Exhibit II below).  These balances are further broken down by the product classification to which the fee applies (e.g. Equity, Oil). Account holders may simply close the window without transmitting the order if the fee impact is determined to be excessive.

Exhibit II

Please see KB2275 for information regarding the use of IB's Risk Navigator for managing and projecting the Exposure Fee and KB2344 for monitoring fees through the Account Window

Important Notes

1. The Estimated Next Exposure Fee is a projection based upon readily available information.  As the fee calculation is based upon information (e.g., prices and implied volatility factors) available only after the close, the actual fee may differ from that of the projection.

2. The Check Exposure Fee Impact is only available for accounts that have been charged an exposure fee in the last 30 days

Background
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, commonly referred to as Dodd-Frank, is a U.S. law enacted in July of 2010, the purpose of which is to prevent the recurrence of events which lead to the 2008 financial crisis. Its principal goals are to:

- Promote U.S. financial stability by improving accountability and transparency within the financial system;
- Protect taxpayers from future bailouts of institutions deemed “too big to fail”; and
- Protect consumers from financial services practices considered abusive.

For additional information, please review the following sections:
- Dodd-Frank reforms
- Dodd-Frank and your IB Account

Dodd-Frank Reforms
To accomplish its goals, Dodd-Frank proposed the following reforms:

- Enhanced oversight and supervision of financial institutions through the creation of Financial Stability Oversight Council
- Creation of a new agency responsible for implementing and enforcing compliance with consumer financial laws (Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection)
- Implementation of more stringent regulatory capital requirements
- Changes in the regulation of over the counter derivatives including restrictions upon access to Federal credit by swaps entities, establishment of regulatory oversight and mandatory trading and clearing requirements
- Enhanced regulation of credit rating agencies intended to eliminate exemptions from liability, enhance rating agency disclosure, establish prohibited activities and impose standards for independent Board governance
- Changes to corporate governance and executive compensation practices
- Incorporation of the Volcker Rule which imposes restrictions upon the speculative proprietary trading activities of banking entities
- Mandating studies intended to reform investor protection rules
- Changes to the securitization market including requirements that mortgage bankers retain a % of risky loans.

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Dodd-Frank and Your IB Account
Perhaps most visible to IB account holders of all the Dodd-Frank regulations are those relating to money transfers. Here, Section 1073 of the Act introduces consumer protections designed to increase transparency with respect to the costs, timing and the right to repudiate cross-border transactions.
For purpose of Section 1073, a cross-border transaction is defined as an electronic transfer of money from a consumer in the United States to a person or business in a foreign country. As IB LLC is a U.S. based broker, all its account holders regardless of whether they are domiciled in the U.S. or not, benefit from this protection and it covers withdrawals denominated in a currency other than the U.S. dollar as well as USD denominated withdrawals sent to a non-U.S. bank. Account holders submitting a withdrawal which is covered by this regulation will be provided with a disclosure after confirming the request within Account Management. This disclosure will include the following information:

- The name and address of the sender and recipient
- The amount to be deducted from the sender’s IB account
- The amount projected to be credited to the recipient’s bank account including an estimate of fees which the receiving bank's correspondent bank(s) may charge. Note that these correspondent bank fees are not set by nor is any part of them earned by IB.
- A disclaimer that additional fees and foreign taxes may apply.
- Notice of the sender’s right to cancel the transfer request for a full refund within 30 minutes of it being authorized.
- Regulatory contact information in the event of questions or complaints.

When estimating correspondent bank transfer fees, IB takes into consideration information collected from past customer transactions in addition to data made available by our agent banks. We encourage our customers to review and consider this information when making decisions regarding cross-border transactions.

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Account holders logging into their account via IBKR's Secure Login System are issued a security device, which provides an additional layer of protection to that afforded by the user name and password, and which is intended to prevent online hackers and other unauthorized individuals from accessing their account. While IBKR does not charge any fee for the use of the device, certain versions require that the account holder return the device upon account closing or incur a replacement fee.  Existing account holders are also subject to this replacement fee in the event their device is lost, stolen or damaged (note that there is no fee to replace a device returned as a result of battery failure). 

In addition, while IBKR does not assess a replacement fee unless a determination has been made that the device has been lost, stolen, damaged or not returned, a reserve equal to the fee will placed upon the account upon issuance of the device to secure its return.  This reserve will have no effect upon the equity of the account available for trading, but will act as limit to full withdrawals or transfers until such time the device is returned (i.e., cannot withdraw the reserve balance).

Outlined below are the replacement fee associated with each device.

For instructions regarding the return of security devices, please see KB975

¹ The Security Code Card is not required to be returned upon account closing and may be destroyed and discarded once remaining funds have been returned and the account has been fully closed. Access to Client Portal after closure for purposes of viewing and retrieving activity statements and tax documents is maintained using solely the existing user name and password combination. This type of two-factor security is no longer being issued.