Gerry Perez, Interactive Brokers UK MD On Winning Best Trading App 2026

Richard Berry (00:04.268)

Welcome to Good Money Guide. My name’s Richard Berry, and today we are talking to Gerry Perez, who’s the MD of Interactive Brokers UK, which has just been voted Best Trading App in the UK in our Good Money Guide Trading Awards. We’re going to have a chat about what Interactive Brokers do, who they do it for, what’s unique about them, and we’re going to find out a little bit more about Gerry himself. So Gerry, nice to see you.

Gerry Perez (00:29.112)

Richard, thank you very much. It’s always a pleasure to be here and being able to be a part of winning this award really means a lot.

Richard Berry (00:36.642)

We’ve always done very well with awards with us. I think you’ve won you’ve won a few over the years. The last time we had the investor show, I think you were up on the stage. That’s true. Quite a few times you’ve got your steps in. Very good. How are things going at Interactive Brokers UK?

Gerry Perez (00:50.776)

Well, we just finished our twenty-fifth anniversary and we just reported our audited financial statements. They are the best that we’ve ever had in twenty-five years. So we’re very proud of that. And considering that in twenty-some years we’ve had positive earnings and such a competitive landscape that makes us very proud that over the years we’ve been able to reinvent ourselves because of emerging issues like Brexit.

And today the marketplace is recognising our tools, our low cost, as well as our reach around the world. So I could only say, yeah, things are pointing up.

Richard Berry (01:33.112)

Good. Long may it continue for the brokers of the UK as well. So this year you’ve won Best Trading App. Obviously, it’s decided by reviews from your customers. So so what what what does it mean to interact with brokers when you when you when you win one of these awards?

Gerry Perez (01:48.782)

Well, it actually does mean a lot. I’ve been in the markets now for over thirty years. And back when I started, it was unheard of to think that at one time or another you could use a phone in order to have access to the financial markets. I remember once sitting at a conference and someone was very visionary about speaking of what the future held. And they said it was all about cutting the costs.

Cutting the angle, cutting the distance, and having that convenience for the retail investor. It was almost sci-fi. And I still remember that quote very specifically today. And for us, it’s always been about providing the best tools for our customers. Today, you it could have in your pocket a mobile app of IBKR and be able to trade over 170 different market centres.

So you could effectively sit in a train, basically buy a stock for a company overseas for very low costs and an inconvenience before you even get to the next station. That means that we’ve been able to cut the angle and basically narrow the gap to allow the customers to be able to trade, diversify their portfolios. And that’s really important to us because that’s what I love about this company. It’s all about institutional tools.

retail accessibility and everything that’s affordable. For everyone behind the scenes, it also means a lot because we have a lot of engineers and product developers that never get to see the validation of their work. And this gives them that validation and on their behalf, we’re very proud of it.

Richard Berry (03:32.814)

Good. Well, no, it’s an honour. It’s nice to have so much good feedback on on your review page as well. Obviously, though, every everybody’s got an app. Many, many brokers are starting up as just an app. And you know, I always come back to the same phrase that everybody is sort of selling the same biscuits, which is access to the market. What’s unique about the interactive broker apps?

Gerry Perez (03:58.414)

Well, I mean, for us, I think what really stands out is I could sit here and give you a dissertation, but I’m gonna just try to narrow it down. Number one, the FCA put out a communique not too long ago all about diversification. For an investor, it’s very important to diversify to mitigate the risks. However, you can’t diversify if it’s not at a low cost. It just becomes too expensive. For us, we provide 170 different market centers.

With over twenty different currencies, you could trade multi-asset classes from that app. That’s pretty significant because that allows the end user the ability to diversify, but more importantly, at a low cost. So you could actually trade an international product as cheap as you could trade a local market. That’s unheard of in this marketplace where a lot of our competitors offer maybe the US, the UK market, but

It’s still more expensive to trade internationally than it is to trade the local market. We’re a little bit different than that. In addition to that, customers, you have a platform, you have your account, your portfolio. You’re always contingent on the fact that what happens if the market goes sideways, goes up, go downs. What’s the impact of I don’t want to invest? I have all my client assets in a broker’s account. There’s a cost attributed.

Usually, a lot of competitors charge, let’s say forty-five basis points up to ninety nine basis points at Interactive Brokers. We’re unique because we charge no custody fees. That’s a huge savings. So if you have an average portfolio size of ten thousand and you’re getting charged forty five point forty five percent, you’re basically paying forty five pounds a year with us, those costs are not

impactful because there are no costs. In addition to that, I would say that when you do have client assets or client money with us and you’re holding extra cash, we pay very competitive rates. And that’s really important to the investor because you always want that alpha. But more importantly, you also want to know that the passive money that you have in your account, you’re getting something more competitive than the banks in our cases.

Richard Berry (08:44.59)

Let’s get back to your apps, though, because that’s what we’re that’s what we’re here to talk about, your apps. Obviously, your trading platform is one of the workhorses of retail and institutional trading. But let’s just run through the apps you’ve got because you’ve got a few different apps for a few different things. So just talk us through the apps that Interactive Brokers offers.

Gerry Perez (09:05.128)

Another part that distinguishes us from the marketplace is that we give a majority of apps. what we have is apps for the whole life cycle of the individual. We realise that not one investor is the same. Therefore, you basically are beginning your intermediate, or you become an expert. And during that life cycle, you need a different application to meet those specific needs. So we have mobile apps, we have desktops, we have

cloud computing apps. We have over five different apps. And even in sustainability, we have an impact app. So those apps are again to meet the different needs of our customers that sit all over the world. And we’re very proud of those apps. They distinguish a lot of opportunity for the customer and they have institutional tools that is another part of Interactive Brokers by giving the individual the opportunity to make use of these tools. They basically have

Greater opportunities and they could mitigate their risks. So these apps like the IBCAR mobile app allows the individual to trade multi-asset classes. They could also see real-time data analytics. They could also interact with their portfolio. Then we have the global trader, which gives you a broad overview of trading multi-asset classes around the world. And embedded in there are a lot of other

let’s say order types and the ability to get insights into the marketplace. So we’re always adding to that. And another distinguishing part about interactive brokers, we usually give over 20 different types of upgrades, not only in our applications, but on market coverage, which is unheard of in the industry, because we really don’t want to be static. We realize it’s a very competitive marketplace and our customers are very demanding.

So for our applications alone, we keep adding every day more value and that pays off at the long run. Customers are coming to us and they’re also staying very loyal.

Richard Berry (11:11.63)

What’s your favourite feature of the IBKR app?

Gerry Perez (11:14.296)

There are a lot of good features in it. I think one that really stands out for me is themes. And the reason why I like this is because, you know, ordinarily as an investor, you type in a symbol and you get the best bid and the best offer and some fundamental analysis. Here you prompt basically a theme like generative AI, and the system automatically gives you companies that are linked to that theme.

And it gives you data, it gives you summary, it gives you insight. So you could have a different mindset and a different perspective in order to invest seamlessly and get some real intelligence. Again, that’s why I like Interactive Brokers, professional tools, retail accessibility and low cost, and that really does stand out for me.

Richard Berry (12:07.326)

Okay. Do you know what my favorite feature is? It’s the pairs trading feature. Okay. You’re the only broker of all the ones that I’ve tested where you can simultaneously execute a buy and a sell order with one stock against another with your with your platform. I haven’t found another broker that allows you allows because I like pairs trading. I always I you know I always hedge. I like to hedge.

Gerry Perez (12:33.122)

Very good, you know, another feature that we have. Another one that you just reminded me of is that distinguishes is order types, right? I mean, we offer over a hundred order types, not only the native but the non-native order types for our customers, that’s really important because there’s a lot of different opportunities to take care of and even in Paris trading, as you mentioned. So I see the professional of you coming back into the marketplace and distinguishing that. So thank you for the shout out.

Richard Berry (13:02.114)

Yeah, no, I enjoy I I always enjoyed that. I actually quite enjoy trading one broker against another because the brokerage industry, everybody seems to go in the same direction. But then if something bad happens to one, it happens, you know, if there’s a change in regulation, it happens to everyone. So you know, the diversification or the divergence between

Gerry Perez (13:20.034)

That’s really good to be able to compare different brokers is really important, especially in the same time. So yeah.

Richard Berry (13:27.234)

What do you think is the biggest mistake traders make when they’re trading on apps?

Gerry Perez (13:32.05)

not only on apps, but in the market, I believe it’s the mindset about learning. the markets change dramatically, tools are changing dramatically, regulation as well as rules of trading on specific exchanges. And as you expand your horizon, not only trade the local markets but internationally, you really have to be very, very committed to learn. And I think an investor that learns makes better informed decisions.

So I think that’s the biggest mistake is if you think, you know what, I’m just going to be very siloed and trade one product and just learn the very basic minimum. You’re going to feel that later on. And for us, that’s why we invested a lot in providing our customers or the marketplace for free, our IBK, our campus, our Traders Academy, and as important our investor mentor app.

Which allows you to take bite-sized learning insights conveniently through your mobile device. So we believe by investing in this hub, it gives our customers or the marketplace in general a better insight because we’re in so many different countries around the world, the opportunity to big make better form decisions. To me, that has a been a very big gap.

And you’ll see it in the government too. Now they’re all talking about financial literacy. And we have outreach programs to the universities for a very long time. And we’re very proud of that. So again, keep learning. Don’t sit back. Don’t be static. The market is changing. Rules are changing. You need to make better decisions. So it’s all about learning.

Richard Berry (15:14.446)

How engaged are people with the with the learning and with the courses and with and with the campus? Because it’s something we’ve discussed a lot in the in the in the past. I think at our our summit, you know, education, education was the was the was the key theme. But it’s I think it’s quite difficult to actually engage people to learn. If I feel as though they get the basics and then they just try and try and wing it. Do you see a lot of engagement with your educational materials?

Gerry Perez (15:41.934)

We do see a lot of engagement and the IBCA campus, the Traders Academy, but we also have a trading lab for university students or students in general, where the academics could make use of our trading applet and paper trading accounts. And it’s been very successful for us around the world. what we see is the engagement where originally, when we just started with, let’s say, you know, the IB Care campus in general, we had to expand.

Because we service so many different customers, so many different languages, and because we offer so many multi-asset classes, there’s specific information for each of those asset classes. next, what we also have seen is that customers are really on the go and everyone wants convenience, especially the younger demographic. So we have something called the Investor Mentor app.

And these are bite sites, insights into how economics work, how trading works, or impactful points that somehow or another affect your investment decisions. That’s been trending up and we’re really proud of it because it’s very convenient to basically learn about all of these points in less than two minutes.

Richard Berry (16:59.402)

And for active investors, do you see a correlation between people that go through the campus or go through the mentor program and those whose accounts perform better?

Gerry Perez (17:12.288)

That’s a very good point. Yes. individuals that want to come to Interact to Brokers, well, we’re not really just for beginners. We’re people have a little bit more experience or insights, but are willing to grow. And those customers that take advantage of those resources seem to be more insightful and let’s say more earning of our trust as well as wanting to expand.

their outlook of how to invest, which really pays a dividend in the long run. That, you know, shows a lot in that our customers in 2025 basically exceeded the returns of the S P 500 And that’s very impactful because that return shows that our customers are very educated, very

in tune with making use of our applications and those are the same customers that make use of our learning hub.

Richard Berry (18:18.424)

So your customer base en masse beat the beat the S&P. Yeah, that’s a great statistic.

Gerry Perez (18:23.192)

That’s correct. That’s something that we’re very proud of, and this is after costs, which is another tell telling sign how different we are. And we believe that the reason for that is that they’re making use of our tools that give them that extra edge.

Richard Berry (18:40.366)

Okay. A that actually quite nicely brings us on to in investment themes. Are those people that beat the market? I assume you it’s of course across all of your customers, but there is there a particular theme that your customers invest in?

Gerry Perez (18:56.502)

I mean it really depends. Like I said, we have customers as a group in over two hundred different countries. So different demographics, different needs, different themes for different customers. I can’t say one per se, but I will say that the probability that a customer of Interactive Brokers trades more than two different market centers is pretty high. And that’s because we offer it very conveniently and very low cost.

Richard Berry (19:25.55)

It’s a bit of a running theme actually through these interviews. It’s always been diversification, diversification, diversification. Absolutely. And as investors grow, they invest in more things and therefore, their performance improves. What do you think are going to be the major themes, major investment themes for the next year?

Gerry Perez (19:44.198)

for the United Kingdom, I think that there’s a lot of cash sitting there in bank accounts and other portfolios. And I believe as individuals become more educated and more comfortable with investing, you’ll see that cash translate into the marketplace where they’ll trade. I believe again, diversification is trending up in the market centers.

where more individuals want to trade not only the local market but internationally because it is low cost with some players. And lastly, artificial intelligence. It’s trending up, not necessarily just to tools, but let’s say the insights that it provides you as well. It’s narrowing the gap of getting the insights and the intelligence at little or no cost. Okay.

Richard Berry (20:37.282)

How is AI used in your apps? I remember when we did the options evening, there was a demo of the integrated AI in the desktop platform. Is that available across the apps as well?

Gerry Perez (20:48.75)

Interactive Brokers has actually been making use of artificial intelligence for quite some time. if you look at the holistic definition of artificial intelligence, we’re talking about algos, robotics, we’re talking about generative. So we’ve had these tools in our platforms for a very long time. However, recently we did add some new tools. so for example, we have chatbots to improve customer service interaction with our customers.

In addition, we have IBKR Ask, which is more generative in the natural large language model, the individual could type in various questions about their portfolio and in real time be able to see what the output is. This is very convenient. We also have news summaries where they could take large, let’s say, data lakes of research and get a summary, insightful, impactful, that basically meets what their criteria is.

And this all plays into the artificial intelligence mindset of our investors. There’s more demand for it and we’re basically out in front providing these tools to get that customer as involved. But also what’s as as important is that we use a lot of feedback loops in order to find out what’s trending. What do we have to do to stay competitive? And loyalty is very important to us. So these AI tools

also provide us the opportunity to keep these customers loyal.

Richard Berry (22:18.99)

Yeah. And it’s a reac we’re you we’re in a reactive business something where you can’t you can’t force a product down a customer’s neck exactly. You have to wait for them to tell you what they want and then and then and then and then give it to you. which actually brings us quite nicely onto products. what do you think the next big products within the investing and trading world are going to be?

Gerry Perez (22:40.002)

Well, I think you have to look at the theme of artificial intelligence, right? There are a lot of tools coming into the marketplace, not only from us, but from other third parties or even indirectly suppliers, whether they’re fintechs or even exchanges. I believe, you know, that’s gonna be the focus for quite some time. And we’ll see how the market evolves. They’ll also narrow the gap between an institutional investor as well as a retail investor.

But I think when you’re in a market like ours, it’s all about regulation. You always have to think of the theme about human in the loop. It’s not about just giving automation to a large language model and allowing it to be autonomous like an agent. It’s about having that opportunity to basically make that final decision.

Yes, there are tasks that you’re going to see that you could automate it, but those are low risk tasks. When it comes to medium or high tasks, do I really want to be able to give an agent the opportunity to trade for me seamlessly and autonomously because of regulation? I don’t think that that’s going to happen. You g have to have that human in the loop and I think that that’s good. So those are the themes that I think you’re gonna see for a little while here. Okay.

Richard Berry (25:55.33)

And one more question before we move on to the final question, going back to the mobile apps. Obviously mobile apps are are generally overtaking desktop or or web based trading. Do you see a difference in performance or characteristics between the type of trader that executes on mobile versus the type of trader that executes on desktop or online?

Gerry Perez (25:59.576)

There you go.

Gerry Perez (26:23.97)

Well, when you look at a mobile device, it does have limitations with respects to memory and capabilities from the manufacturers themselves. So you’re not gonna see a full array of all the tools that Interactive Brokers provides or some of our competitors just because that device is limited in capacity. So you will use that more for convenience, you’ll use that for data analytics.

You’ll do that for market intelligence. And that convenience is really beneficial for anyone, not even some of our institutional customers that are traveling and they’re able to look at their portfolio and see what the impact of the marketplaces is. But we’ll have to see how the gap narrows when you’ll see a full suite of tools into a mobile device. But then again, as mobile devices are becoming more

Let’s say acute with respect to capabilities, I think it’s only positive for the end user. Yeah.

Richard Berry (27:28.322)

Curious to know what your institutional slash retail execution rates were for mobile, whether or not you have big hedge funds executing on mobile.

Gerry Perez (27:37.782)

I would still think that they’re gonna use our, let’s say, standalone applications. we also offer APIs. Our RBKR Desktop, our Trader Workstation, which is our hybrid model, still has all the suite of tools, data analytics, AI, apps embedded in it. So I think a lot of institutional customers will use that.

And it’s also the mindset, right? You know, you feel more comfortable when you’re sitting down, you have a big screen and you have this desktop that’s full with all the bells and whistles than seeing everything on a small little screen. So you’ll you’ll still see more leaning towards that.

Richard Berry (28:18.754)

Yeah. I y I’m exactly the same. I pretty much do everything on my mobile except for the big stuff. Doing it which which you go to which you go to a computer for. Final question. Book recommendations. We ask everybody, is there a book you can recommend to investors or or traders that will help them understand the markets better?

Gerry Perez (28:39.35)

a book per se on investing. I’m gonna say a book that not directly towards investing, which is really important though to me as an investor grows. It’s all about the mindset, about the decision process. There’s a book out by Daniel Kahnman. It’s about thinking fast and slow. I love this book. This book basically unravels the decision process.

of an individual. And that’s so important to understand. As you have the compression of information and the speed of information coming to an individual, making the right decision is very important. And the only way you know how to do that is to better understand how that cognitive mindset works. This book explores that in depth. And I really recommend it to anyone, not only investors, but anyone just basically making any kind of decisions for the investor white is important because the more I understand my decision process, I hopefully will make better decisions. And I think it’s a plus plus.

Richard Berry (29:47.638)

Yeah, I’m reading it at the moment, actually. Yeah, it’s a fascinating, fascinating book. You’re also the third person to have recommended that book in in this. Hopefully we’ll get a Yeah exactly. Yeah, we’ll pop an affiliate link in and see if we get anything back. Gerry, thank you very much for talking to us. Congratulations again on on

Gerry Perez (29:59.126)

Royalty.

Gerry Perez (30:06.86)

Pleasure. And on behalf of Interactive Brokers and to all your readers, thank you. We’re very proud of it and we’ll look forward to next year. Excellent.

Richard Berry (30:16.44)

Thank you very much. If you use Interactive Brokers or after this, if you go on to use Interactive Brokers, please do come to their review page on the Good Money Guide and tell us what you think.