Trading Access for Third Parties

Interactive Brokers identifies third-party developers as vendors of software that would interact with IB client accounts to which the vendor has no formal relationship or access within IB. This is in contrast to an advisor or introducing broker who maintains an account structure with IB and formally manages client accounts.

Third-party vendors may currently only seek approval for the use of OAuth1.0a.

Third-party vendors must receive Compliance approval for their product offerings before integration can proceed.

The third-party approval process begins with the submission of a third-party onboarding questionnaire.

Please note that vendors are expected to have an established business entity and a public presence online with material describing their offering. Proof of concept builds to demonstrate intended functionality are strongly encouraged as well. The onboarding process typically proceeds as follows:

1. Our onboarding team conducts the initial screening. Estimated time to complete this step is 2-3 weeks. If our onboarding team is able to proceed with your request for approval, they will send your application to our Compliance team for review.
2. IBKR Compliance conducts an enhanced due diligence review on all third-party applicants, followed by a three-tier approval process. Estimated time to complete Compliance-related reviews and tasks is 3-6 weeks.
3. If Compliance grants approval, our Legal team will generate a Web API agreement which will be relayed to you for review and signature. In parallel, our third-party onboarding team will ask you to provide public keys and a callback URL in support of the configuration of your OAuth1.0a consumer. Detailed instructions for this process will be provided once this stage is reached. Estimated time for IB complete our portions of the aforementioned process is 3-5 weeks.

The above timelines are estimates and can vary. We recommend providing as much information as possible up front. Not doing so can extend timelines.

During the enhanced due diligence reviews conducted by our Compliance teams, they will expect vendors to have a completed website with finalized details of the product offering. This typically includes a clear user workflow for all components and descriptions of their functionality and capabilities.

Should Compliance approval be reached for your product offering, any significant changes to the offering following approved (such as the addition of trading functionality) would require additional review and approval from our Compliance teams before being offered to IBKR clients.

Please be aware we expect third-party vendors offering automated trading solutions to hold applicable registration with financial authorities in all regions they plan to service, unless the vendor is able to provide support (i.e., a legal opinion) as to why the proposed service would not require registration in a given location. Additionally, the offering will need to be reviewed and approved by Compliance teams in all regions in which you intend to serve IBKR clients.