Interactive Brokers Central Europe vs Ireland

I tried to open a new account with Interactive Brokers Ireland 10 days ago. I funded the account as soon as they provided transfer details. Today I received the following by email:

We are sorry but applications to IBIE are delayed right now and we are unable to provide an exact date as to when your application will be processed.

If you do not wish to wait (and do not have an existing account with IBIE), you may proceed by opening an account with our affiliate, Interactive Brokers Central Europe Zrt. (“IBCE”), which is not experiencing delays. Please note that if you decide to abandon your IBIE application and start an application with IBCE, you will need to withdraw the funds you've deposited as they cannot be transferred to the IBCE account.

Click to expand...

Does anyone know why their Irish entity is slow but the Central European entity is not? Is it lockdown related?

Are there any disadvantages to trading using their CE entity? I wonder why they bothered to establish an Irish entity if the CE entity (regulated in Hungary) could just be passported into Ireland.

I opened a De Giro Ireland account at the same time and I was able to trade within two days, so I may just cancel the IB application altogether.

Does anyone know why their Irish entity is slow but the Central European entity is not? Is it lockdown related?

Click to expand...

At a guess I’d say not. First of all, property investing is not encouraged anything like in Ireland, so it is common for people to already have some investments by their mid 20s. And the second thing is that it is common for ebanking to include broker service, it’s just another option on the menu. And the fees are not unreasonable.