IBKR's custody pitch to RIAs focuses on low fees, growth potential

In an industry channel dominated by giants, Interactive Brokers makes its custodial pitch to financial advisors based on fees, cash yields, loan terms and global trading technology.

Gushing Wall Street analysts closely tracking Interactive Brokers — also known by its ticker symbol IBKR — and the 40% jump in its stock value this year may be more familiar than some advisors with the automated trade execution and custody firm launched in 1993 by securities technology pioneer Thomas Peterffy. But IBKR's landing page for registered investment advisory firm owners — who have more than $100 billion in assets from hundreds of thousands of clients in its custody — speaks advisors' language, featuring a pledge to be "your custodian, not your competitor" and linking to its rates for commissions, fees, margin, interest and the company's stock-yield enhancement program.

Yet like many of its rivals in the highly competitive clearing and custody business, the firm and its director of sales, institutional, Amanda McLean, declined to disclose any more specific metrics for Financial Planning's ongoing series on the channel's fees and business models. 

However, IBKR is "very committed as a fiduciary" to advisory-firm clients that it aims to help "succeed and grow and be part of our Interactive Brokers family," McLean said. Bulked-up service teams, the ability to trade in 170 global markets across 29 currencies in a single unified master account and a record of "RIA overperformance at IBKR" (per the firm's website) that beat the S&P 500's gain in 2025 by 2.67 percentage points add to the firm's case to advisors for their clearing and custody business. 

"We've always been very transparent about our offering," McLean said, noting the firm's policies against custody fees, minimum assets under management requirements and ticket charges. "Essentially, advisors can come to us in whatever part of the business cycle — whether they're established or newly formed — and we'll engage with them." 

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New growth gospel

Interactive Brokers is "an emerging custodian" that could forge deeper inroads among advisors beyond its reputation as a "trading-oriented platform" through customer service and tech tools specifically targeted to advisors, according to Stephen Caruso, the director of wealth management at consulting firm Cerulli Associates. For example, he cited Altruist's Hazel AI agent for financial planning, which the firm rolled out the week after it agreed to sell to Vanguard at a reported price above $4 billion. RIA recruiting that homes in on cash "could definitely be a contributing factor" to IBKR's possible expansion, alongside some smaller firms' dissatisfaction with the larger players like Charles Schwab, Fidelity Investments and BNY Pershing and the continuing trend toward advisory firms using multiple custodians, Caruso noted.

"They still have a ton of room to grow in the RIA market," he said. "There's opportunity out there. Over the years, we've said that custody became an oligopoly in a lot of ways." 

To be sure, the equity analysts aren't paying as much attention to this potential as they are to developments like, say, the collaboration with South Korean giant Daol Investment & Securities that IBKR announced last month or the unified prediction-market interface the firm unveiled in May. In June, Steven Chubak of Wolfe Research issued a note on the initiation of his team's coverage of IBKR, which Chubak hailed as "The Gospel According to Peter(ffy)."

"IBKR has built one of the only brokerage platforms with a true global footprint and a demonstrated ability to sustain its growth at high incremental margins," Chubak wrote. "We believe ~25% long-term account growth should prove sustainable given an unmatched geographic footprint and access to channels beyond individual investors (introducing brokers, prime, RIA). Moreover, IBKR has already absorbed the upfront costs of expanding internationally, suggesting the firm's best-in-class margins should prove sustainable with incremental account growth."    

Chubak's team subsequently boosted projections of the company's earnings following its second-quarter results. When asked about the firm's account growth on the July 21 call with analysts, CEO Milan Galik mentioned advisors specifically, along with the firm's other bases of customers. (IBKR has more than $903 billion in client assets across all of its affiliates.)

"It's very simple," Galik said. "We are growing everywhere globally, all the regions, all the account types, whether it's financial advisors, introducing brokers, direct accounts. We are pleased with our growth across the board. It's that simple."

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Calling out the competition

For advisors, IBKR's recruiting page trumpets its "transparent, published pricing for all" and "competitive interest on client cash (up to 3.13% USD)," compared to competitors who "negotiate opaque pricing deals" and "monetize client cash via low-yield sweeps." In that sense, it is pressing a potential advantage over much larger rivals who would face many more complications when trying to alter their businesses across a wider base of advisory practices.

"Most custodians also run their own advisory businesses, sell proprietary products and operate referral networks that route clients to firms willing to pay for the privilege," the IBKR page said. "Interactive Brokers does none of these things. Interactive Brokers has no in-house advisory team. No proprietary wealth management arm. No referral network. No proprietary products. Our only business is giving you the technology, pricing and global market access to run your practice on your terms."

The firm has worked with RIAs for 25 years, but it has focused more closely on ramping up service teams for them in the past 10 to 15, according to McLean. Last year, the firm started a dedicated team for RIA transitions as well.

"While there's always noise in this space and we always see consolidation, we're very committed to our platform and we're always evolving it," she said.    

To that point, she pointed out that the firm has integrations with "many third-party providers, and we're very good at it, due to our high-level automation." So, even if the cheering Wall Street analysts would pivot to asking how the firm might raise RIA fees if IBKR were to grow to a size approaching one of the giant custodians, the firm isn't counting on price alone in its recruiting.

"It's not just about having the lowest fees," McLean said. "It's about making an offer that is compelling, so that you as an advisor can have enhanced performance and you can think about growing your assets."