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Market Analysis
Interactive Brokers Launches Impact Dashboard to Facilitate ESG
The more people exert their will to change the world, the more pressure is put on everyone to get on board.
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The FinTech era brings us many innovations and comforts not previously thought possible. As our finances become more customizable, socially responsible investing (SRI) will become more commonplace. Interactive Brokers (IBKR) is the latest player to make your values count.
Enthusiasm for SRI Reaches All-Time High
For the last twenty years, as social media has impacted our cultural and cognitive landscape, we have seen a drastic shift in perspective. The utility of provided services and products is no longer being perceived as the end-game in doing business. Instead, people are starting to scrutinize their expenditures/investments as belonging to a wider value-imbued sphere.
As the role that both humans and large corporations have in protecting the environment become increasingly broadcasted, companies are taking notice—even in the world of finance. Interactive Brokers is the latest to have an impact here.
Value-Based Spaces as Vehicles of Influence
As the mindset of personal culpability thrives, the financial world is also aligning their services accordingly. Interactive Brokers has now taken a big step in ESG investing – Environmental, Social and Governance, also known as Socially Responsible Investing (SRI).
Interactive Brokers has a positive track record of making successful moves, having sailed through the pandemic. Compared to Q3 2019, the brokerage raised its net income by $53 million, to $334 million for Q3 2020.
To ride the wave of ESG investing going forward, Interactive Brokers has just released an Impact Dashboard. This investment tool represents the brokerage’s approach to aligning customer’s values with their investment portfolios. Free of charge, the Impact Dashboard allows you to select those companies with a track record of being eco-friendly and socially desirable.
IBKR’s Impact Dashboard Explained
If you are wondering what kind of values can be covered by ESG investing, which is expected to account for $53 trillion worth of assets by 2022, IBKR has laid it out clearly with its Impact Dashboard tool. You have 13 ESG investment criteria to choose from and prioritize:
- 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
- Fair Labor & Thriving Communities.
Likewise, as you can attach these values to your investments, you can also remove those companies that fail to satisfy your value-set within many categories, such as fossil fuels, animal testing, or questionable ethics, to name a few.
Although already launched, the Impact Dashboard is still in beta phase. However, it is available for all IBKR users, and is accessible through IBKR’s mobile app, Client Portal, and Trader Workstation (TWS).
💡 Want to learn more about this brokerage? Take a look at our complete Interactive Brokers review.
Which value-set would you prioritize in your portfolio? Let us know in the comments below.
Tim Fries
Tim Fries is the cofounder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate on the investment team at RW Baird's US Private Equity division, and is also the co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.
