IBKR UK Sterling Deposits and hold period
Hi,
A little confused over the hold period on deposits from UK banks. I am resident in Canada but still have assets in the UK. From time to time I deposit these from my UK bank into IBKR. They are then normally exchanged to CAD and reinvested. However, for normal bank transfers the funds are placed on hold for 6 months, the only exception is by using a CHAPS transfer (for which the bank has a minimum transfer value of GBP10k). This supposedly means i can invest, but not withdraw the funds.
A couple of years back, I did this, and it totally froze my account, meaning that a couple of months later, I tried to transfer some money from IBKR to my Canadian bank - despite having a seven figure sum in there and regular dividend income (the UK transfer in was relatively insignificant). To say I was annoyed is an understatement, fortunately I did not need to withdraw at the time. Note - I had not simply translated the money and tried to withdraw....these were wholly separate transactions with many other transactions between.
More recently I did forget the transfer hold for a transaction, and it was denoted at being on hold, but for whatever reason, this time I had no issues moving money into my Canadian bank. Can anyone explain how this works, given my sum invested is many times whatever deposit I might transfer from the UK?