For AGORA direct™, security and financial stability are a central part of the company's philosophy. Therefore AGORA direct™ only accepts business partners for whom AGORA direct™ can assume that the partners also include security and financial stability at the core of their business philosophy in the interests of the customer.
Before you entrust your assets to a broker, you should ensure that it can survive even in poor economic times. The strong equity situation, the conservative balance sheet structure and automated risk control mechanisms of our broker partners protect you as our customer and us AGORA direct™ from far-reaching damage.
Facts:
In detail: The IBKR broker association has over 985,000 customer accounts worldwide, including all AGORA direct™ customer accounts. An average of more than 1.5 million transactions are carried out every day. The volume includes total assets of more than 156 billion US Dollars. IBKR broker association equity is over 8.5 billion US Dollars. We are therefore convinced that AGORA direct™ customers are excellently positioned with their accounts.
The customer can rely to a great extent on the 5-pillar security. It offers the transnational protection that customers can expect for themselves. Customers from the EEA have to accept legal restrictions¹.
Note: All of the following currency information also applies of course to the respective equivalent in another currency, such as EUR, Swiss Francs, US Dollar, etc. For the purpose of determining a customer account, accounts with the same name and type are combined (e.g. John Doe's personal account1 and John Doe's personal account2 are considered to be one customer account), accounts of different types are not merged (e.g. John Doe's personal account1 and John Doe's company account1 are considered as two accounts).
This comprehensive, combined protection protects the securities accounts of the customers up to an amount of 30 million US dollars (including up to 1 million US dollars in cash). This protection is a combination of those described below five pillars.
All customer funds are kept separately in special bank or deposit accounts, which are designed exclusively for the benefit of customers. This protection (the SEC uses the term “reserve”, the CFTC uses the term “segregation”) is a core principle of securities and commodities brokerage services. In using of a proper separation of client funds these are available for repayment to the customer (if there are no borrowed amounts of money/securities or future positions), in case the broker falls into arrears or becomes insolvent. A portion of client money is typically invested in US Treasury paper. According to the regulatory requirements of the CFTC, a part of the customer funds can also be invested in non-US government bonds, as is generally the case with other providers. But given the uncertainties and credit risks associated with sovereign debt, no client money is currently being invested in money market funds.
The fidelity liability insurance of the Euler Hermes SA secures 50,000.00 Euro per individual insured event for Agora Trading System Ltd. This covers damage caused by misconduct by employees of Agora Trading System Ltd. which occur in accordance with the insurance conditions.
Securities Investor Protection Corporation, SIPC
The SIPC pays for the first 500,000 US Dollars per customer (including cash up to 250,000 US Dollars).
These include stocks, bonds, government bonds, certificates of deposit, mutual funds, money market funds, and other investments. The market value of stocks, options, warrants, liabilities and cash (in all possible currencies) is protected by this insurance. The SIPC does not protect any commodity futures contracts / commodities (futures, futures options and single stock futures). However, in order to benefit to the maximum from the SIPC insurance in these cases as well, the cash available is periodically transferred from the futures account (Commodities) to the securities account (Securities) and thus the customer benefits from the SIPC insurance to the maximum.
The SIPC insurance offers protection against misconduct by a broker, but of course not against the loss of the market value of the investments made, i.e. products bought or sold.
The protection provided by the SIPC does not extend to so-called non-US index options and non-US index futures, as well as CFDs at any time. To ensure that these do not remain unsecured, an account regulated under British law is assigned to each trading account. The non-US index options and non-US index futures as well as CFDs are then traded separately via this UK-regulated account. As a result, the protection provided by the British FSCS deposit insurance takes effect. From this it follows a security for the UK regulated account of a maximum of 50,000.00 British pounds. Customers from the EEA have to accept legal restrictions¹.
Lloyd's of London is a world leader in the insurance industry. Clients, who have full SIPC coverage, will receive an additional 29.5 million US Dollars (incl. cash up to USD 900,000.-) through Lloyd's police when required. This maximum amount is part of the comprehensive insurance limit of 150 million US Dollars.
The IBKR Broker Association is rated "BBB+"; "Postive Outlook." The equity capital amounts to more than USD 9.0 billion, of which USD 6.9 billion are available as excess regulatory capital.
¹ Customers from the EEA are legally entitled to compensation of up to EUR 20,000.00, with a maximum of 90% of the deposit. Given the total capital of the IBKR brokerage association, which is 8.25 billion US Dollars and together with the strict margin guidelines that apply across all brokers, which include credit checks before an order is accepted and automatic account liquidations, who do not meet their margin requirements, it can be assumed that the security and stability of the assets of each individual client is consistently guaranteed. The IBKR broker associationvoluntarily holds an excess of its own capital (property) in separate reserve accounts to ensure that there is more than enough cash to protect all customers.
Current SEC regulations require that a detailed reconciliation of all client funds and securities be performed at least once a week to ensure that client assets are properly segregated from the broker's own funds. In order to protect customers' assets even better, the IBKR broker association has requested and received approval from FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) to perform and report client asset reconciliation on a daily basis. IBKR broker association started these daily calculations in December 2011, along with daily adjustments to the funds that are securely held in custody for clients. The fact that the accounts are not only balanced weekly, but daily, is just one of many examples of efforts to offer customers the best possible protection.
The CFTC - US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, based in Washington, DC, is an independent US authority and regulates the futures and options markets in the US. For more information about the CFTC and answers to frequently asked questions, please visit: http://www.cftc.gov or Address: CFTC, Three Lafayette Center, 1155 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC 20581 - Phone: +1 (202) 41 85 00 0
The SIPC is a non-profit membership association funded by brokers who are members of the SIPC. More information about the SIPC and answers to frequently asked questions, please contact: www.SIPC.org or
Address: SIPC, 805 15th Street, NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20005-2215 -
Phone: +1 (202) 37 18 300
FSCS-Financial Services Compensation Scheme is the UK's deposit insurance scheme. For more information about FSCS and answers to frequently asked questions, please visit: www.fscs.org.uk
Address: FSCS, 10th Floor, Beaufort House, 15 St Botolph Street, London EC3A 7QU -
Telephone: +44 (020) 77 41 41 00
Lloyd's of London Insurers is one of the oldest and global leaders in the insurance industry. For more information about Lloyd's and answers to frequently asked questions, please visit: www.lloyds.com
Address: Society of Lloyd's, One Lime Street, London, EC3M 7HA, UK
Telephone:+44 (020) 73 27 10 00
As the licensing authority in the USA, FINRA is primarily responsible for the supervision of persons and companies involved in the securities industry. The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) delegated this responsibility to FINRA. For more information on FINRA and answers to frequently asked questions, please visit: www.finra.org
Address: FINRA 1735 K Street, NW, Washington-DC 20006
Telephone: +1 301-590-6500
