Interactive Brokers Group has unveiled IMPACT, a patent pending mobile trading application designed to help investors easily align their portfolios with their values and help shape the future they wish to see.
Expanding upon our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) trading initiatives, IMPACT features a simple and intuitive app design that streamlines the sustainable investing process for any investor and gives U.S. clients access to zero commissions on U.S. stock trading.
The launch comes at a time when ESG considerations have become increasingly important to investors on a global scale.
The Global Impact Investor Network estimates the total size of the market at $715bn managed by 1,720 organizations.
“IMPACT takes the utility and values alignment offered by our Impact Dashboard and places it at the palm of the investor’s hand,” said Will Peterffy, ESG Director at Interactive Brokers.
“We’re leading a new generation of investors making values-based investments by enabling them to develop their own conscious investment plan based on their personal values providing accountability and transparency.”
IMPACT allows investors to select their personal investment criteria from 13 impact values and principles: Clean Air, Pure Water, Ocean Life, Land Health, Consumer Safety, Ethical Leadership, Gender Equality, Racial Equality, LGBTQ Inclusion, Company Transparency, Sustainable Product Lifecycle, Mindful Business Models, and Fair Labor & Thriving Communities.
Investors can also exclude investments based on ten categories: animal testing, business ethics controversies, corporate political spending and lobbying, energy-intensive, fossil fuels, greenhouse emissions, hazardous waste, high water usage, tobacco, alcohol and gambling, and weapons and gun manufacturers.
Based on these selections, the app provides impact scores on existing portfolios and holdings and identifies companies that align with investors’ selected criteria. (Interactive Brokers uses ESG data provided by third-party vendors and combines it with a client’s value preferences to generate impact scores.)
This, along with the ability to review financial metrics for stocks and examine companies’ impact scores, affords investors the opportunity to improve their scores through the selection of alternative companies in a simple and efficient manner.
IMPACT also includes the “Swap” feature, a unique offering that gives users the ability to swap positions in the same dollar amount from one security to another.
“The IMPACT ‘Swap’ function goes a step further than our competitors to allow clients to easily re-align their portfolio positions with what they care about the most, which we’re really proud of,” added Edward Soffer, ESG Manager at Interactive Brokers.
“The app is designed for modern-day investors who understand that their investments make an impact and catalyze change,” he said.
Additional tools and features available on the IMPACT app include: Charitable Giving; Guided Investing Experience; and Access to Cryptocurrency.
In conjunction with the launch, Interactive Brokers has partnered with One Tree Planted on the IMPACT Plant a Forest initiative.
Available to the first 30,000 customers who sign up for IMPACT, the Plant a Forest program gives investors the opportunity to make an important environmental impact.
For every $1,000 dollars an investor deposits in their account, IMPACT will plant 25 trees.
For the equivalent of 1 tree per $40 deposited, IBKR customers who use the IMPACT app can easily help reforestation efforts and direct IMPACT to plant trees in environmentally critical regions such as California, Mexico, Côte D’Ivoire or India.
