Paasa: Interactive Brokers' global platform with India compliance built in

Interactive Brokers has been the professional standard for global investors for decades. Near-interbank FX rates. Options and futures on 80+ exchanges worldwide. Margin lending at rates that institutional investors pay. FINRA/SIPC protection. Execution quality that retail brokers do not match.

Indian residents can open IBKR accounts directly. Many sophisticated investors have done so. The problem is well-documented among them: IBKR gives you US tax forms — Form 1099-B and its foreign equivalents — not Indian ITR-format statements. Every figure is in USD. To prepare your Indian ITR, you convert every transaction manually using historical exchange rates, or you hire a CA who bills by the hour to do it for you.

For an investor with 10 annual transactions, this is manageable. For an active trader with hundreds of transactions across global markets, it is a significant recurring overhead.

Paasa solves exactly this — and only this. It adds an India-facing compliance layer between you and IBKR, leaving the underlying IBKR account and asset access entirely intact.

What Paasa actually is

Paasa is not a brokerage. It does not hold your money. It does not execute your trades.

Your account is at Interactive Brokers, opened in your name, under your PAN, with IBKR as the registered broker-dealer. You have direct IBKR account credentials. Your statements are IBKR statements. Your SIPC protection is from IBKR.

What Paasa adds is a layer on top: the India-facing compliance work that IBKR does not do for Indian residents. This includes:

• Pre-filled Indian tax documents in ITR format, including Schedule FA values
• FEMA and LRS compliance support — guidance on the right purpose codes, documentation, and limits
• Preferential FX rates for the remittance leg
• India-business-hours customer support in English and Hindi
• Relationship management (on the Apex plan)

The underlying IBKR account gives you everything IBKR gives everyone: near-interbank FX, 80+ exchanges, options and futures, margin lending, the full global asset universe.

What IBKR gives you — and why it matters

Before getting into Paasa's specific plans, it is worth understanding what the IBKR foundation delivers.

80+ global exchanges. US stocks are the obvious use case. But IBKR also gives you direct access to London Stock Exchange, Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Euronext, Tokyo Stock Exchange, Singapore Exchange, and more. For globally mobile Indian professionals, this multi-exchange access is valuable. Most Indian LRS platforms give you US markets only.

Options and futures. IBKR's options platform is among the best available to retail investors. You can buy puts for downside protection on your US stock portfolio, write covered calls against your RSUs (after transferring them via a mechanism separate from Paasa), or use futures for tax-efficient market exposure. For most Indian retail investors, derivatives access was previously unavailable through India-route platforms. Via Paasa, it is.

Near-interbank FX. IBKR's currency conversion system charges approximately 0.002% with a $2 minimum — effectively interbank. On a $60,000 remittance (approximately ₹50L), the IBKR FX cost is roughly $120 (about ₹10,000). A typical Indian LRS platform charging 50–75 paise above interbank costs ₹25,000–37,500 on the same amount. The saving of ₹15,000–27,000 on a single remittance event is real.

SIPC protection. Your IBKR account carries SIPC coverage up to $500,000 per account (including $250,000 in cash). This applies regardless of whether you access IBKR via Paasa or directly.

FINRA registration. IBKR is a FINRA member broker-dealer — subject to US financial regulation and the associated investor protections.

The Access plan

The Access plan is Paasa's lower-friction option. The structure:

• No monthly fee, no minimum balance, no inactivity fee
• Small markup on US trade commissions above IBKR's published rates (verify the current markup on paasa.in before opening — pricing is subject to change)
• Full IBKR asset universe
• Pre-filled Indian tax documents
• FEMA/LRS compliance support
• Preferential FX rate on remittances

Who this works for: active traders who want IBKR-level execution without the compliance overhead. You pay a per-trade premium for the Indian tax documentation you would otherwise produce manually. If you are trading frequently across global markets, the time and CA cost of doing the compliance yourself likely exceeds the markup.

For less active investors — say, below 10–15 trades per year — the math is closer. At that level, whether the markup is worth it depends on how much you value the pre-filled tax documents vs doing the conversion yourself.

The Apex plan

The Apex plan is designed for larger portfolios and investors who want a managed-service experience:

• IBKR's published tiered rates pass through with no Paasa markup on trades
• AUM-based fee charged on your invested balance (tiering down as the portfolio grows; verify current rates on paasa.in)
• Dedicated relationship manager for tax and FEMA queries, and investment guidance
• All other features included in Access

Who this works for: investors with ₹50L+ deployed in their account. At that scale, the AUM fee is typically a small percentage of the portfolio (often less than 0.1% annually at higher balances), the trade commissions come in at IBKR's best tiered rates, and the dedicated relationship manager provides real value for navigating annual ITR filing, Schedule FA, and FEMA compliance.

The relationship manager is not a SEBI-registered investment adviser for the purpose of Indian securities — Paasa's positioning is as a compliance and platform layer. But for tax and cross-border compliance questions, having a dedicated point of contact who understands both IBKR and Indian tax is practically useful.

The FX advantage: the math

FX is where Paasa (via IBKR) provides its clearest, most quantifiable advantage over LRS-route Indian platforms.

Most Indian platforms charge 50–75 paise above the interbank USD/INR rate at the time of remittance. IBKR charges 0.002% with a $2 minimum.

At today's USD/INR rate of approximately ₹83–85:

A ₹10L remittance ($11,900 approximately):

• Indian platform FX cost: 50–75 paise × $11,900 = ₹5,950–8,925
• IBKR via Paasa: 0.002% × $11,900 = $24, plus $2 minimum = $26 (₹2,200)
• Saving: ₹3,750–6,725

A ₹50L remittance ($59,500 approximately):

• Indian platform FX cost: ₹29,750–44,625
• IBKR via Paasa: ~₹9,000
• Saving: ₹20,750–35,625

At ₹50L annual deployment, the FX saving alone can cover the Apex plan's AUM fee for the year and still come out ahead.

This is why the FX advantage tends to be the deciding factor for large-corpus investors choosing between Paasa and LRS-route Indian platforms.

What Paasa adds vs direct IBKR

If the savings come from IBKR's FX rates, and the account is at IBKR anyway, why not just go direct?

Several reasons:

Pre-filled Indian tax documents. Direct IBKR gives you Form 1099-B (for US trades) and equivalent for other markets. To use these in your Indian ITR, you need to convert every USD figure to INR at the applicable rate, apply Indian capital gains rules (which differ from US rules), and populate Schedule FA with the correct values. For a multi-asset, multi-exchange portfolio with dozens of annual transactions, this is hours of work per year or a material CA fee.

FEMA compliance support. The LRS process, purpose codes, Form A2 documentation, and annual ₹250,000 limit tracking are Indian regulatory requirements that IBKR does not help you with. Paasa does.

LRS remittance infrastructure. Paasa has pre-built relationships with Indian banks for LRS-route remittances, which simplifies the transfer process vs DIY-ing the SWIFT transfer with purpose code documentation.

India-business-hours support. IBKR's support operates on US hours. Paasa's support is India-hours, which matters when your issue is a time-sensitive trading or compliance question.

The question you should actually ask: what does the compliance overhead cost you if you go direct? If you have a CA who bills ₹5,000–10,000 to handle your IBKR statements annually and you are comfortable with the FEMA documentation yourself, direct IBKR may be cheaper. If the compliance is genuinely time-consuming or error-prone, Paasa's layer pays for itself.

The asset universe via Paasa

There is no restriction on which IBKR assets you can access via Paasa. The full universe is available:

• US stocks and ETFs (NYSE, NASDAQ, CBOE)
• US options (equity and index options, including complex multi-leg strategies)
• US futures (CME, CBOT, NYMEX, COMEX)
• European equities and ETFs (LSE, Euronext, Xetra, Swiss Exchange)
• Asia-Pacific equities (Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Japan, India — IBKR also supports BSE/NSE access, though Indian residents investing in Indian markets via IBKR is a different regulatory question)
• Fixed income (bonds, T-bills)
• FX forwards and spot

For most Indian retail investors, options and futures via Paasa is the first-ever access to derivatives on US underlyings. Covered call writing against a US stock portfolio, buying put protection ahead of a concentrated stock sale, or using S&P 500 futures for cash management — none of these were previously accessible through India-facing platforms.

Who Paasa is for

HNI investors with ₹25L+ annual deployment. At this scale, the FX advantage of IBKR makes a material difference. The Apex plan's AUM fee is small relative to the portfolio and pays for itself in FX savings alone.

Globally mobile Indian professionals and NRIs. If you need to invest in markets beyond the US — Hong Kong, London, Singapore — Paasa via IBKR is the only India-route platform that gives you that access.

Options and derivatives traders. If you want to write covered calls, buy protective puts, or use futures for market exposure or tax management, Paasa is currently the only India-facing route to get there.

Investors who want IBKR-level execution without compliance DIY. If you know IBKR is the right platform but find the Indian compliance overhead genuinely burdensome, the Paasa layer directly addresses that friction.

Who should look elsewhere

Small or high-frequency traders. IBKR's per-share minimum commission applies even via Paasa. For very small orders or very high-frequency trading, the economics may not work.

RSU holders who need inbound ACATS from employer brokers. This is Rovia's purpose-built feature. Paasa/IBKR does not address the Indian RSU tooling problem (vest-date SBI TT rates, specific lot selection in INR, tax-loss harvesting schedules calibrated to Indian tax law).

Investors who want Indian + US in one consolidated app. Paasa is a US/global platform. Your Indian portfolio lives elsewhere.

Investors wanting the GIFT City route — no TCS, no LRS limit impact — look at Dhan.

For the full platform comparison, see Vested vs INDmoney vs Interactive Brokers, our Vested vs IBKR comparison, and our best US stock platform India 2026 guide.

Also see: how to invest in US stocks from India 2026 for a broader overview of the LRS process.

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Vested.blog is the editorial publication of Rovia, a US stock investing platform for Indian residents.