What are the disadvantages of the IDCSA?
You may be disadvantaged if your cash balance does not qualify for the higher-yielding tiers in the IDCSA, in which event you will earn less interest on your cash than you would in most money market funds. Also, you may earn less interest on these FDIC insured deposits than is available on deposits that are not FDIC insured, and less iterest in the IDCSA than may be available from other financial institutions. You should compare our rates with those offered at competing banks, brokerages, and money market mutual funds. You will be able to obtain higher rates elsewhere, but we believe we offer the best package of services, rates, innovative offerings and other benefits for longer term investors.
You may be disadvantaged if your cash balance does not qualify for the higher-yielding tiers in the IDCSA, in which event you will earn less interest on your cash than you would in most money market funds. Importantly, however, the tiering allows us to pay higher rates to higher balances thereby allowing us to be more competitive for those higher balances, while also allowing us to earn more on accounts where the cash balances are low and the cash balance is being used, for example, more like a checking account (for which many banks usually pay no interest at all). This in turn allows us to keep our membership and other fees low for our smaller accounts and continue to innovate and grow for the future. We wish we could offer all our services for no cost to everyone — but we can’t and this offering keeps us competitive while still allowing us to offer — what we believe to be — the best brokerage platform for longer-term investors. You should compare our rates with those offered at compe
