It has been a long time since I opened a new account, but I had an account number from both IB and Infinity before sending in the dough. I was a commodity futures broker back in the 90's, and we always issued and account number first, then arranged funding. One of the posters above seems to have quoted this broker's website as saying that you will be issued an account number automatically when you fill out the on-line application. So, fill out the on-line application, and see if an account number is generated for you without having to first wire funds.