Degiro has a much shorter history compared to Interactive Brokers, and yet it is still very popular among traders the world over. Degiro was founded 7 years ago in 2013 in the Netherlands with the goal of making international financial markets accessible to traders around the world. Since then, Degiro has spread to 18 countries in Europe while acquiring over 400,000 clients around the world.
That is a huge achievement for the company, but Interactive Brokers (IBKR) has had an even greater story dating back to 1977. Back then there wasn’t even retail trading and floor brokers were still yelling instructions on trading floors. Since then, IBKR is active in over 125 countries around the world and has over $7 billion in equity capital. Nevertheless, one should not judge a broker by its history but rather by what it currently offers, so here it goes.
Platform ease of use
Before 2013, Degiro mainly served professional clients and provided its proprietary software to these clients. As you would imagine, the platform is very powerful and versatile enough to perform all its functions quickly. It is also available on iOS and Android when a trader needs to access the markets remotely.
Interactive Brokers also offers its own software labelled Traders Workstation (TWS). This too is a powerful trading platform having been perfected over the years, and it too is available on mobile devices. One thing to note is that TWS is only available to IBKR Pro clients and not IBKR Lite traders, which may eliminate traders who don’t qualify for IBKR Pro.
It’s a tie because both brokers have quality trading platforms.
Fees
Trading US stocks on Degiro costs a flat fee of €0.50 and a commission of $0.004 per share traded. On the other hand, Interactive Brokers charges $0.0035 per share traded, with a maximum commission of 1% of the total value of the trade. If you were to trade, say, 100 shares, your total charges would be about $1 (($0.004 x 100) + €0.50 with Degiro. Meanwhile, the same trade would cost you $0.35 with IBKR. Furthermore, IBKR Lite clients get to enjoy zero commissions on trades, albeit with some compromises.
Winner is thus Interactive Brokers with lower trading fees.
Markets available
Degiro has a lot of markets you can trade around the world, and these include stocks, options, bonds, ETFs, futures and leveraged products. With partners around the world, all these products are sourced from various financial centres around the world, providing access to global financial markets for all Degiro traders.
Not to be left behind, Interactive Brokers also has many partners and offices around the globe, which also gives trades extensive access to the markets. These products range from stocks, bonds, ETFs, futures, options, mutual funds, commodities, Forex and more.
This makes IBKR a winner by number of available markets.
Deposit methods
Degiro
- Bank transfer by GBP
Interactive Brokers
- Online bill payment
- Wire transfer
- Check
- Automated Clearing House (ACH) initiated by bank
- Automated Clearing House (ACH) initiated at IBKR
Winner is IBKR
Unique features
Degiro’s trading platform has been labelled as the most innovative by Barrons Magazine between 2005 and 2015, proving that the broker’s trading platform is indeed very powerful. The same magazine has, however, labelled Interactive Brokers as the best online broker in 2019 and the previous 8 years before. That shows IBKR has a balanced offering of services all around thanks to its decades of existence.
Winner is Interactive Brokers.
