FAQs – Deposit & Withdrawal

For account security and risk-management purposes, your cash available to withdraw may be less than your cash balance for the following reasons:

1) Withdrawal Holding Period

If you deposit funds by ACH transfers, your deposits need to stay in your account for a minimum of 7 trading days. If you deposit funds by wire transfers, the withdrawal holding period will be 1 trading day

2) Settlement Period

The settlement period is the trade date plus two trading days (T+2). Funds are not available to withdraw before fully settled

3) Required Margin Maintenance

NYSE & FINRA rules require investors to maintain a certain minimum amount of equity in their margin account at all times.

4) Pending Orders & Frozen Funds

The funds used in pending orders and purchasing IPOs and Secondary Offerings will be locked up in your trading account and are not available to be withdrawn.

1. Please allow up to 48 hours for the two micro-deposits to appear in your bank account. If you started the verification process on a weekend or a holiday, the two micro-deposits will appear on your account within the next two business days. 

2. Please check with your bank before contacting our customer service for micro-deposit status. 

3. If you only see one small deposit in your bank account, your bank might have combined the two micro-deposits into one. In that case, please contact your bank for details. 

4. If you do not receive any micro-deposits within 2 business days, please check whether your bank supports ACH transactions. Your other option is to use the real-time verification process. 

5. If both verifications failed, please try linking another bank account.

Before your first deposit via ACH, you will have to link a US bank account. There are two ways to do this: 

1. Instant Account Verification 

2. Micro-deposit Verification.  

The deposit via ACH may be returned for many reasons. Please note that if an ACH reversal occurs, your account will be charged $30 by IBKR, our clearing partner. GPS is not authorized to waive the reversal fees after they have been charged. 

The most common reversal reasons are: 

1) Insufficient funds. 

2) Duplicate operations. 

3) Rejected by the bank. 

4) Recalled by oneself. 

A wire transfer is an electronic payment service for transferring funds by wire, for example through SWIFT, the Federal Reserve Wire Network or the Clearing House Interbank Payments System. Wire transfers are generally faster and more expensive than ACH transfers.

1. Wire transfer must be initiated through a bank account. We do not accept any 3rd party wires and all transactions must be in same name. Third-party wires will be rejected and returned. A returned wire may incur bank fees which will be borne by the remitter. 

2. Information of “For Final Credit To” is a must for incoming wires, otherwise the funds will be returned.

3. ABA number will be used for a domestic U.S. bank wires, while SWIFT codes are used for international banks.

4. For international wires, the received funds may be less than the sent funds due to fees charged by the intermediary bank.

5. You must provide your full name and GPS account number in the description/comment of your wire transfer, or the transfer will be returned. Please contact us if you have any questions.

6. Domestic wire transfers can be completed in 2 business days, but international wire transfers may take up to 5 business days. Funds will be placed into your account the next business day after we receive your deposit.

First, make sure your bank account is capable of ACH transfers, and double check the information you provided when linking the bank account. Make sure you have enough settled cash in your bank account to cover the deposit you made. Finally, try not to link a savings account.

1) Link limit: For a new bank account, verification is needed before cash can be transferred. Each GPS account can be linked with only one bank account. 

2) Fees: ACH transfers are free. However, failed deposits will be charged a $30 reversal fee by our clearing firm. Deposits could fail for many reasons, such as insufficient account balance or wrong routing number. 

3) Transfer limit: A maximum of $50,000 can be deposited into your GPS account per day. 

4) Timing: Each transfer takes 4 – 5 trading days to complete. However, after a deposit you will get provisional credit with buying power so you can start trading right away.

The verification page may take a while to sync with our clearing firm. Please try again in an hour during trading hours. Be aware that the 48 hour micro-deposit withdrawal time frame still applies.

Each ACH deposit takes 5 business days to settle. Before the funds are settled, we will provide you with partial provisional credit as buying power, so you can start trading immediately. At this time, if your deposit was reversed due to insufficient funds, a non-transactional account, levies, or for any other reason, your account will be affected negatively:

• Your will be charged $30 by our clearing firm for each reversal;
• Your credit scores with GPS will be affected negatively. In severe cases, it may lead to an account closure.

To prevent reversals, we recommend taking the following steps before initiating an ACH deposit:

1. An ACH transfer may take up to 5 days to de deducted from your bank account after initiation. You need to make sure to maintain sufficient balance in your bank account to cover the deposit until the funds are deducted.
2. DO NOT USE someone else’s bank account. If you are not the account owner, please replace this account with your personal bank account.
3. Confirm that your bank account is compatible with standard outgoing ACH transfers, and that you’ve entered in the correct information when you linked the account.
4. Refrain from using a savings account. Please be advised that not all savings accounts at bank and credit unions support ACH transactions, and many have limitations on the number of transactions per month. Please check with your financial institution first before initiating a deposit.

If you have any questions about a reversal, please contact your bank for a detailed explanation of the reversal. We don’t initiate reversals.

Yes, you can trade in the same day if you deposit via ACH before 4:00 pm on a trading day. You will get a provisional credit (up to $1000 depending on the incoming deposit) of buying power after your deposit. You can use this provisional buying power to trade. Note that if you do so, your cash balance might go negative because you are using credit rather than settled cash.  The deposit won’t be added to your cash balance until it settles after 5 business days. You can review the settlement date and other details in the prompt on top of the “Trade” screen or in the “Deposit” section. 

The deposit pages are slightly different for accounts with stocks and accounts without stocks. 

Please note you must have sufficient settled funds in your bank account in order to deposit, or your account will incur a reversal and our clearing firm will charge you $30. To prevent such a reversal, please make sure you and your bank meet the following criteria: 

1) Your bank account must be capable of ACH transfers. 

2) Your bank account information is inputted correctly. 

3) You have sufficient settled funds in your bank account to cover the initiated deposit. 

4) Try to avoid linking your savings account to an ACH.

To link a bank account: 

1) Tap the “Deposit” tab. 

2) Tap “Make Your First Deposit.” 

3) Tap “ACH.” 

4) Tap “Real-time Verification” or “Micro-Deposit Verification.” 

5) Follow the rest of the steps. 

If one verification fails, try the other method. 

To initiate a deposit: 

1) Enter the amount you want to deposit and tap “Transfer to GPS.” 

2) Wait for the deposit to be processed. 

Once the deposit begins processing, you will get provisional credit (up to $1,000) as buying power for trading. The incoming funds usually take five business days to settle, add to your cash balance, and convert to full buying power. 

Please note: If a deposit is made on the weekends, it will begin processing Monday morning. 

1) If a deposit is made after 4:00 pm EST on a business day, it will start processing at the beginning of the next trading day. 

2) If a deposit is made before 9:00 am EST on a trading day, it will begin processing during trading hours on the same day.

Each ACH deposit takes 5 business days to settle. Before the funds are settled, we will provide you with partial provisional credit as buying power, so you can start trading immediately. At this time, if your deposit was reversed due to insufficient funds, a non-transactional account, levies, or for any other reason, your account will be affected negatively:

• Your will be charged $30 by our clearing firm for each reversal;
• Your credit scores with GPS will be affected negatively. In severe cases, it may lead to an account closure.

To prevent reversals, we recommend taking the following steps before initiating an ACH deposit:

1. An ACH transfer may take up to 5 days to de deducted from your bank account after initiation. You need to make sure to maintain sufficient balance in your bank account to cover the deposit until the funds are deducted.
2. DO NOT USE someone else’s bank account. If you are not the account owner, please replace this account with your personal bank account.
3. Confirm that your bank account is compatible with standard outgoing ACH transfers, and that you’ve entered in the correct information when you linked the account.
4. Refrain from using a savings account. Please be advised that not all savings accounts at bank and credit unions support ACH transactions, and many have limitations on the number of transactions per month. Please check with your financial institution first before initiating a deposit.

If you have any questions about a reversal, please contact your bank for a detailed explanation of the reversal. We don’t initiate reversals.

This could mean that your bank’s network timed out, or your connection is unstable. If you continue to get this message, please switch to the micro-deposit verification process. If this fails, please try a different bank account.

If you realize the wire info you provided is incorrect, contact your remitting bank immediately to cancel the wire transfer.   

Due to data privacy laws, we are unable to track the funds and will only see if they have arrived.

The verification page may take a while to sync with our clearing firm. Please try again in an hour during trading hours. Be aware that the 48 hour micro-deposit withdrawal time frame still applies.

We currently do not support this function. However, rest assured that it is in the pipeline.

The two micro-deposits might have been merged together by your bank. Please ask your bank for the individual amounts.

An ABA routing number is a nine-digit code that appears on the bottom of negotiable instruments (like checks) to identify the financial institution on which it was drawn. To transfer with a US bank account, you need an ABA routing number. 

Common reasons are:

1) The beneficiary bank account is not yours. In that case, all the third-party wires will be rejected.

2) You have insufficient funds to cover the wire withdrawal fees.

A SWIFT code is used to identify a specific bank during an international transaction. If you are transferring from a non-US bank account, you will need one. It helps keep the international financial market running smoothly. Some banks use a bank identifier code (BIC) instead of a SWIFT code; the two are easily interchangeable. If you do not know your bank’s SWIFT code, please contact your bank.

It usually takes 1-5 business days.

1. Withdrawal Holding Period

If you deposit funds by ACH transfers, your deposits need to stay in your account for a minimum of 7 trading days. If you deposit funds by wire transfers, the withdrawal holding period will be 1 trading day.

2. Settlement Period

The settlement period is the trade date plus two trading days (T+2). Funds are not available to withdraw before fully settled.

3. Pending Orders & Frozen Runds

The funds used in pending orders are purchasing IPOs and Secondary Offerings will be locked up in your trading account and are not available to be withdrawn. 

Withdrawal and deposit accounts must be the same for ACH, otherwise, you’ll have to wait for 60 days to withdraw into a different account.

4. AML

Withdrawal and deposit accounts must be the same for ACH, otherwise, you’ll have to wait for 60 days to withdraw into a different account.