Well, for starters most transfers I and my friends have had to make are not to our own accounts. There's also the time issue - I have an IB account, and love it, but most of the time I'm using Transferwise because I'm in a different country and paying someone, or because I need to move money between my own accounts quickly. Transferwise is literally instant for about half the transfers they do, which is incredible. Meanwhile with IBKR I'm usually out at least three business days for any USD funds to show up in IBKR, plus whatever time to wait on the foreign currency side. Then there's also the UI - sometimes I need someone else to transfer the money, or IBKR's login system is locking me out, etc etc, and in those cases Transferwise always wins. Or if I'm transferring under 25k and I need to do it outside of market hours - in that case my transaction is an odd lot at IBKR, getting me (oftentimes) bad rates, and I might as well use Transferwise.
Don't get me wrong, I like IBKR and I do use it, but Transferwise is definitely more useful 90% of the time.
Don't get me wrong, I like IBKR and I do use it, but Transferwise is definitely more useful 90% of the time.