IBKR MiFIR registration

[blake_ch]

Hi all,

I went through the IBKR registration thanks the various guides here, however there's one part that I couldn't fill and don't know the impact. I am a swiss citizen and resident and registered accordingly for a simple account, providing address in switzerland and all...

I'm stuck with the "MiFIR National Client Identifiers" section. I shall provide my passport informations, which I do not have (I only have an identity card). There is a note saying :
Failure to complete this task and provide us with the valid national identifier may result in restricted trading

I have the possibility to say that I don't have said document, but will that limit my ability to buy US ETFs? I don't want to buy a passport just for trading purposes...

thank you very much

 

[Baptiste Wicht]

Hi blake

Interesting, I never thought of filling the application without a passport. Don't you have an option to use a national ID instead of a passport? Given we are outside the EU, a passport is probably mandatory.

Without it, it may indeed result in not having access to US ETFs.

You can edit almost all the data after the application, so I would recommend continuing with the application and see what happens. You don't have much to lose.

 

[blake_ch]

Hi Baptiste,

Yes, I did register with the national ID, and ibkr confirmed my profile quite quickly when I created the account.

But I went to the "Tax Forms" page in my profile, to check if everything was filled correctly for the W-8BEN (which I had, in fact, already filled in the first application) and saw the part as shown on the screenshot below.

It feels counter-intuitive, as the disclaimer in blue is about failing to provide national identity (which I did through the above section + picture of it). I don't know if I should say "no" to the latest question.

thank you very much

 

[Baptiste Wicht]

That form is really bad, it's really unclear.

I would say "no" if you have no passport, but not entirely sure. I have never seen this form before, it may be an update and I will see it next time (W8BEN must be refreshed).

 

[blake_ch]

I sent them a ticket yesterday, but no reply so far. I will post any update in this thread.

So far, I could buy my first VT shares, so that means that currently, my account is fully enabled.

 

[blake_ch]

With quite some delay, I finally received a reply from the IBKR support.

So their UI is a bit wrong/confusing, because according to their reply, no action is required on my side, neither are the related informations needed :

In a review of our ticket system, I see your inquiry never received a response. Please accept my sincere apologies for this oversight.

MiFiR II refers to reporting obligations for products traded in countries in the European Economic Area (EEA). Under the MiFiR regulatory rules, investment firms are required to include a unique identifier which is assigned to the individual or algorithm that is responsible for making investment decisions related to products which trade in the EEA.

We see that Everything looks good with MIFIR configuration and we see that your account has US stock trading permissions.

Certain stocks may require an additional permission for "Complex or Leveraged Exchange Traded Products".

Kind regards,
Samantha S
IBKR Client Services

All in all everything was OK, but the whole thing can be quite confusing.

 

[Baptiste Wicht]

Thanks for sharing. It's good that this is resolved. But I agree that this is quite confusing!