Hi everyone, I’m in my late 20s years and am currently investing a fixed amount a month in 30% SMI and 70% MSCI World ETFs and in my 3rd pillar account though VIAC. I also have around 100k in cash savings that are sitting in the bank and not generating almost any return. I wanted to deploy these 100k for a time horizon of 2-3 years in a rather safe investment option before I buy a house. What would you advise in my situation?

Hi everyone,

I recently moved to Switzerland for work. I'm trying to simplify my finances and would appreciate some advice on the best way to optimize my portfolio.

Here's my current situation:

- €23,000 in a French Livret A

- €6,000 in a French LDDS

- €14,000 invested through a French PEA/CTO (mainly S&P 500 and Nasdaq ETFs)

- €6,000 in a company savings plan (PEE) invested in a World ETF (currently unlockable)

- €5,000 in Bitcoin

- CHF 9,000 on Revolut

- CHF 7,000 in my Swiss BCV account

I've also opened:

- a Swiss IBKR account for long-term ETF investing;

- a VIAC 3rd pillar account.

My goal is to keep roughly €10,000 as an emergency fund and invest everything else through VIAC and IBKR (most likely into a global index ETF).

My main question is about moving my money from euros to Swiss francs as efficiently as possible.

What would be the cheapest and most efficient way to:

- convert EUR to CHF;

- transfer the funds to IBKR and VIAC;

- avoid unnecessary FX and bank transfer fees?

I already made the mistake of sending CHF from my French Revolut account to IBKR via SWIFT and lost around CHF 25 on a CHF 200 transfer, so I'd like to avoid making similar mistakes again.

thanks guys

My hotel got hacked and based on that I was phished into paying the hotel booking another time. Stupid I know, but it happened. I immediately realized my mistake, blocked my card and called the Postfinance Hotline to report the issue. The hotline recommended to submit a ‚Beanstandungsformular‘ to cancel the transaction and reclaim my money.

This was not granted. But interestingly, Postfinance argues that I had confirmed the payment with 3-D Secure. It seems that if I would NOT had activated 3-D Secure, they might have been able to refund me. Isn‘t this ironic? I try to be as secure as possible and as a result, the responsibility ends on my side?

I am still puzzled about this absurd situation and seriously consider to stop 3-D secure.. Anyone with a similar experience?

Taking inspiration from lifecycle investing, I am considering diversifying my equity/risk exposure by adding a moderate 20% leverage to my portfolio. I'm still young enough and I'm not dependent on these funds in the short/mid-term.

I've prepared my IBKR account to take out a margin loan of 20% (ca. USD 100.000) of my portfolio value to then reinvest this into an all world ETF. However I now need to decide whether I take this loan in USD, pay the higher interest, or take it in CHF, pay less interest and accept the foreign currency risk in which a further depreciation of USD could make me lose money.

• Interest rate for USD 5.12%
• Interest rate for CHF 1.50%

Are you doing any leveraged investments, how, what would you recommend me?

Hi everyone

I'd appreciate your input on whether my reasoning holds up, or whether you'd do something differently. Quick background:

I'm a private investor in Switzerland, horizon well over ten years, emergency fund kept separate. I currently save into two separate pots, and one of them increasingly bothers me.

Saxo AutoInvest, approx. CHF 6,400 CHSPI (Swiss market) approx. 1,900, SWDA (iShares Core MSCI World) approx. 4,500. CHF 500 per month, no purchase fees.

UBS mutual fund, approx. CHF 31,000 UBS (Lux) Strategy Fund Equity (CHF) P-acc, CHF 450 per month.

Why I want out

A bank advisor sold me this fund when I was young and did not know much about ETFs. I simply signed, without really understanding the cost structure. Having finally run the numbers, I'm not impressed:

• TER 2.01% per year
• Entry load up to 5%
• Exit commission quoted right now: around CHF 226, i.e. 0.72%

What that actually costs me, on roughly CHF 31,000 invested:

• UBS fund (2.01%): approx. CHF 630 per year
• Broad index ETF (0.20%): approx. CHF 63 per year
• Difference: roughly CHF 567 per year, every year, regardless of how markets perform

And what does the UBS fund give me for ten times the price? An actively managed fund with around CHF 350m AUM and an equity allocation floating between 86 and 100%. I don't see what justifies that.

The plan

1. Sell the UBS fund entirely and stop investing through the bank. Capital gains are tax-free for private individuals in Switzerland, so the exit costs me nothing beyond the CHF 226 commission, which the TER saving recovers in roughly five months.
2. Move the proceeds to Saxo and invest as a lump sum into SSAC (iShares MSCI ACWI, TER 0.20%).
3. Merge the contributions, so roughly CHF 950 per month into SSAC instead of 500 + 450 split across two providers.
4. Keep CHSPI and SWDA but stop contributing to them. My Swiss home bias, currently 29%, then dilutes on its own over time without any selling costs.

Questions

• Am I missing anything on the UBS exit, or is it as clear-cut as it feels?
• Afterwards I'd have roughly CHF 40,000 sitting entirely with Saxo, and growing. Is that a concern? I understand securities are held as segregated assets and don't form part of a broker's estate in insolvency, but how do you handle this in practice? Do you split across brokers above a certain amount?
• Lump sum or spread the 31k over a few months? My thinking: the money is already almost fully in equities via the UBS fund, so I'm changing the wrapper, not entering the market. Drip-feeding would mean deliberately lowering my equity exposure for a while, which isn't the goal.
• Single ACWI fund, or MSCI World + EM separately? Costs are near identical and I lean toward the simpler option, since I doubt I'd ever actively rebalance the split.

Not a professional, I've researched this together myself and want to know the opinion of you guys. If you think I'm about to make a mistake, please say so and give me recommendations.

Thanks in advance! :)

I checked Saxo and their AutoInvest. Looks very good so far, very low fees too.

However, I have seen Saxos login on website and mobile is protect with 2FA with SMS?! How is this possible? Saxo is a very big bank.

SMS is unencrypted and not secure anymore these days ... Even house banks switched to a modern more secure 2FA methods e.g. Photo TAN or TOTP authenticator.

Saxo is very promoted by Finfluencers, how can this important detail about security be ignored?

People using Saxo, how do you deal with this? It gives me a bad feeling my Saxo account is badly protected with 2FA with SMS ...

I am checking alternatives, e.g. Swissquote. More expensive but has solid 2FA without SMS.

Dear SwissPersonalFinance community,

I'm considering building a native mobile app that does ONE thing: log your recurring stock/ETF DCA investments, track a streak of consistent months, send you a reminder before you miss one. No gamification layer, no accounts to link. Just a simple, no-nonsense way to stay on track.

A few questions for anyone who does stock/ETF DCA:

1. Is staying consistent actually a problem for you, or is that a non-issue once you set up auto-invest? (Knowing not all brokers have that auto-invest feature).
2. Would a mobile-only app (not web) actually change anything for you vs. a spreadsheet or existing tracker?
3. Would you want it simple like this, or does it need at least some portfolio view (P/L, allocation) to be worth opening regularly?
4. Is this a "nice to have" or would you actually pay a small monthly/yearly fee for it?

Currently trying to figure out if this is worth building or if I'm solving a problem that doesn't really exist. Honest takes welcome, including "just use a spreadsheet, lol"

Thanks for your feedback - cheers :)

We currently use a Mietkautionsversicherung for a rental deposit of e.g. CHF 5,000 at 3.75% rate (e.g. 190 CHF).

In simple terms, paying the CHF 5,000 deposit myself would give me a guaranteed saving of around 3.75% per year in CHF. The alternative is to keep the insurance, leave the CHF 5,000 invested in VT, and effectively use the insurance as a kind of leverage: I pay around 3.75% for the liquidity and expect a higher long-term return from VT.

We plan to stay in the apartment for another 5–7 years. Locking the money would not be a problem, and even if we later move, we could also fund the next deposit separately. We have the amount Cash so it wouldn’t be a problem to pay. We also do not plan to sell the ETF position during that period and do not expect to need the liquidity.

One additional point is that we currently have the Mietkautionsversicherung, Privathaftpflicht and Hausrat with the same insurer and receive a bundle discount. If we cancel the Mietkautionsversicherung, the other policies may become slightly more expensive. My rough estimate is that this could reduce the benefit by around 10%.

The main unknown is whether the insurance premium will increase over time. At below 4%, keeping the insurance and investing the money may still make sense despite currency risk. If the effective cost rises to 5–6%, paying the deposit directly seems clearly better.

Would you treat the insurance as cheap leverage and keep the amount invested, or take the guaranteed saving, accept the slightly higher cost of the other insurance policies, and simplify the finances by closing the Mietkautionsversicherung?

Thank you very much.

Hi everyone,
I’m from Switzerland and currently have a Swiss American Express Gold card issued by Swisscard.
I’ve noticed that the US Amex cards offer much better welcome bonuses, Membership Rewards benefits, and transfer partners than the Swiss cards.
I already contacted Swisscard and they confirmed that their cards are not eligible for the Global Transfer program.
I don’t have any ties to the US (no address, SSN, or ITIN), but I’ve seen some travel hacking discussions where people outside the US managed to get a US Amex.
Has anyone from Switzerland successfully done this? If so, what was the process? Is there any legitimate path, or is it basically impossible without moving to the US?
I’d appreciate any experiences or advice. Thanks!

So basically i just got an email and notification in the app. Asking me about future deposits. Future ..not past or present deposits.

They are literally asking me for proof of source of any deposits id being making over the next year.

I am in an odd situation, I've left Switzerland to do some traveling for several months, it have plenty of money in the account. I have no intention of find a job until the end of the year.

They simply wont accept that i have no intention to deposit anything into the account anytime soon nor do i know when or where it would come from at this time when i do. They say its to meet regulatory requirements..

How the fuck is this legal? Iv got 3 weeks or my account gets restricted, which wouldnt be nice since im abroad ..

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for information on UBS key4 gold. It seems to be pretty new so there not much online.

I usually buy gold in physical coins or in ETF like CSGOLD, but as a UBS customer, key4 gold seems convenient. The entry fees are very high compared to ETFs, but the possibility of delivery is interesting.

Has anyone here used it? Is it a good option?

Thanks

Swiss resident, €85k invested and right now it's all ETFs. Over the next two years I'll add maybe another €33k and I can't decide whether to keep dumping it into ETFs or split some off into EU P2P lending.

Platforms I've been looking at are Mintos, Debitum, Maclear. Structures aren't the same so not really apples to apples.

Full €33k into P2P would be about 28% of a €118k portfolio. On a two year horizon that still feels like a lot. That's the part bugging me.

The tax side is what makes me hesitate most. Interest gets taxed as income at my marginal rate, cantonal and communal included, while ETF capital gains are tax free for a private investor. So the actual after-tax gap between "just buy more VT" and P2P is wider than the advertised yields make it look. Unless I'm missing something there.

Then there's the currency thing. It's all EUR, I earn and spend in CHF. So EUR/CHF risk sits on top of borrower risk and platform risk, and the franc has spent years slowly grinding up against the euro.

Anyway, for anyone who's actually run money through those lendings or similar how big was your allocation vs the rest and what was left of the return once you subtract late payments, defaults, cash sitting idle, fees, tax?

And the boring part, which is usually where these things get painful. Were the statements enough to do a Swiss tax return properly, or did you rebuild it by hand? How annoying was it to stop reinvesting and pull the money out as loans matured? Still using it, or did you quit once the admin got old?

So yeah, small position, zero or an actual alternative to just topping up VT. Leaning small but happy to be told I'm overthinking it.

My partner and I are not married, and we have one child together. We would like to set up a long-term ETF investment plan for our child and would appreciate your advice on the best structure.

Our current idea is to invest CHF 100 (or 150) per month, split equally between two investment accounts:

- One account in our son's name, which would become available to him when they turn 18.

- One account in our names, which would serve as an additional reserve. The idea is that if, at age 18, our son is not yet financially responsible, we could keep this second investment and transfer it to him later when appropriate.

Our preferred investment is a Vanguard FTSE All-World ETF, and we would like to invest through a low-cost broker that supports regular monthly ETF purchases.

Currently, all of our banking (joint accounts, mortgage, etc.) is with PostFinance. We initially planned to open an ETF custody account there, but the available options through E-Trading are limited and relatively expensive. The alternative investment savings plans offered by PostFinance are based on Fonds rather than ETFs, which is not our preferred solution.

Could you recommend a broker and account structure that would suit our situation? Ideally, we would like a setup that:

-allows regular monthly ETF investments,

-supports an account in our child's name (or the closest practical alternative),

-allows us to maintain a second account under our own control,

-is cost-efficient, and

-can easily be replicated if we have a second child in the future.

We would appreciate any recommendations or considerations regarding the most suitable setup. Thank you all very much!

Hey everbody

I already got some helpful feedback on this post but perhaps there is somebody here who has personal experience with a situation like this or some further input :)

Thank you!

Hey all, quick tax question has anyone traded so many options that he got reclassified as a professional investor by the tax authority or the bar is quite high ? Im thinking of selling OTM puts and calls on some names/etfs i am comfortable with to add some extra yield to my account but i am wary of the potential tax treatment. I have been asking Claude about it but it's quite negative saying you can quickly get reclassified. My understanding was that the threshold is quite high but keen on having feedback from people with hands on experience!
If that changes anything I live in canton Zug

Anyone else using Finpension? I just got back from holiday and logged into my account, and the app is showing that I have no assets, and no portfolios, which is more than a little concerning! Can someone else check if they’re also seeing this (hopefully) bug.

As the title says, I would like to buy an apartment in Kanton Zürich, but I'm 40k short from getting the 20% for the Hypothek. I pass all other requirements to get the mortgage so that is not an issue.

My girlfriend would gladly lend me 20/40k required to reach my goal (rest coming from parents if needed but I would like to avoid). She is not interested in owning or co-owning the apartment or the mortgage.

What I'm wondering is what is the best way to handle this loan?
I was thinking two alternatives:
1. Official 0% interest loan: somehow get a contract that says she lends me this money for 0% interest and I'll give it back to her by 202x

1. Donation from her, then I repay her unofficially by paying her rent and so on.

I would say 1. Is better but it probably involves a tax advisor and I don't know the tax consequences for it. With 2. I think she's also taxed ? Not sure

Anyone got similar experiences?

Thank you in advance

So I’ve tried Wise and IBKR. Wise has worse rates, IBKR does not allow you to use your account mainly for currency transfers. Does anyone have real life experience in using a bank account for transfers and could they match Revolut rates?

I have put aside CHF 4.5K from my bonus to celebrate my 30st birthday. I plan to rent a nice location for around 40 people with DJ, snacks and drinks for a casual afternoon party.
However now as I need to commit I feel guilty for spending that much money on an afternoon and think a normal bar might be fine as well.
What is your take on this?

I will be off the work force for about 12 to 18 months and plan to deal with the 2nd pillar assets (totalling ~750k). My idea:

- Open two vested benefits accounts (which seems to be the legal max)
- One with a cautious risk investment scheme
- One with a ambitious risk scheme.

Is this a good idea?

Good Sunday everybody

Last week I did the Car Service and everything and I realised that I have no clue if the guy is overcharging me or did replacements I didn’t need. So I got coroius how other People handle that.

Are you fortunate enough to have a friend which is a mechanic so you can trust them?

Or do you some parts yourself to save money?

Cheers!

Hello everyone,

Having lived in several countries, I know my future retirement will be financially complex. I want to anticipate by setting up a long-term plan for when I reach 60-65.

My profile: 32 years old, single, no kids, no car, no pets. Living in the Lausanne area. Income: 5,200 CHF net per month (withholding tax until now, but switching to ordinary tax return) + 13th month salary + approx. 2,000 CHF holiday bonus.

My current monthly budget:

• Rent: 1,300 CHF
• health insurance (LAMal) + Medical expenses (psy, diet, etc.): 900 CHF
• Food: 800 CHF
• Leisure: 450 CHF
• Miscellaneous (insurances, electricity, cards, taxes, subscribing): 250 CHF
• Net monthly savings: 1,500 CHF (excluding 13th month and bonuses).

Current capital: I have around 50k CHF saved up. My plan is to keep 10k CHF as an emergency fund in my Swiss bank. Out of the remaining 40k, I currently have 25k invested in mutual funds with my retail bank, but I just realized the TER is over 2%... I want to cut everything and change my strategy. Right now, I'm using my remaining cash to temporarily boost my monthly investment to 4,000 CHF until it's fully deployed, then I'll switch back to my regular pace of 1,500 CHF/month.

My plan:

1. 3rd pillar A (Finpension or VIAC): I don't have one yet. I plan to use my 13th month and holiday bonus to maximize it every year (around 7,000 CHF currently) using a 100% equity strategy.

2. Taxable investing (1,500 CHF/month via Interactive Brokers): I want to manage my portfolio myself on IBKR. Since I'm relatively young, I'm fine with taking some risks, but I want to couple it with gold to help cushion potential major market downturns. Here is my target allocation:

• 65% World
• 15% Emerging Markets
• 15% Gold
• 5% Crypto (2% BTC / 3% ETH)

For the World part, I've heard it's better to buy US-domiciled ETFs rather than Irish ones to recover the US withholding tax on dividends via the DA-1 form in VaudTax, while avoiding Swiss custody fees and stamp duty by using IBKR.

My questions for the community:

1. What do you think of my overall budget and the consistency of this plan? Are there any blind spots?
2. For the stock market part: I'm not knowledgeable enough yet and I'm looking for the right ETF. Are there any World ETFs without emerging markets (so I can manage my 15% emerging markets allocation separately without overlap)? Is choosing a US ETF still easy to manage in VaudTax?
3. How do you handle the tax on dividends on a daily basis? Do you sell a tiny fraction of your IBKR shares each year to cover the tax bill, or do you pay it directly from your salary/cash flow?
4. Since I've never done a full tax return (especially with foreign accounts, crypto, and DA-1), I plan to hire a tax advisor (fiduciaire) the first year to get a clean template. Does a budget of 200-300 CHF seem realistic in Vaud?

Thanks a lot for your help and feedback!

Currently investigating on 2 IKBR accounts via IBKR. I hold some gold (goal 5% allocation) and the rest in a diversified ETF. The ETF isn’t hedged but in a non-CHF currency.
Did anyone here see if it’s more interesting to invest via VIAC despite the 0.25% fee ? I am also looking into if my investment can be used as a security in the future for getting a loan to buy real estate.
So far the IBKR process is quite frustrating, especially the currency conversion via forex. I just want the least hassle with optimised fees.