My partner recently relocated to Zurich. She wants to open a bank account with a bank which has physical branches. She is interested just in the bank account to receive the salary, debit and credit card (if free). If the interface and the documents would be available in Italian, in addition to English, it would be a big plus.

She decided for Migros Bank, but she can't open an account there because she only has a L permit.

Which bank do you recommend as an alternative?

Hi,

I'm in desperate need of help with compound entries in Banana accounting.

The NGO I volunteer at receives Stripe payments every month. I need to enter the whole payment, and it includes donations, subscriptions, and Stripe fees.

I enter the whole payment: let's say it's 950 for example. I then enter 500 as donations, 500 as subscriptions, and 50 as Stripe fees. All entries have the same date.

In the Categories sheet, I get the right amounts.Revenues are correct, expenses are correct and the balance is correct. But in the Accounts sheet, the incomes are wrong: they correspond to actual incomes + the amount of Stripe payments.

What am I doing wrong?

Thank you so much in advance!

I got an „application“ to join a union (my brothers asked me to). My main reasoning would be to get 80.- in Reka, while the yearly costs are only 50Chf.

Now, my question is: Are there any side-effects? Its vdac so what would happen if i dont work at coop anymore? Can it negatively impact any job-searching (legally not ofc, but still…) and could negotiations around an individual salary-raise suffer?

Thx :)

I‘ve been investing in stock mainly NASDAQ stock for sometime however recently I find the market very choppy and want to sell and move to an ETF. Any suggestions on ETF products to look for ? Fees I believe would be cheaper with a Swiss held ETF which I think is done through SIX. As you might deduce from the phrasing of my question I am not too familiar with ETFs only having once invested in an iShares Gold ETF several years ago when I was in a similar dilemma.

So i have been using etoro for quite a while and switched to a crypto wallet.The problem is that its very hard to buy crypto with most swiss cards including mine and i realy tried every online methode.It would be great if anyone could give me some suggestions or if possible transfer me and i clould pay by twint legitement.

Hi everyone

My wife and I are sadly having to leave Switzerland after 7 amazing years. Background - we are a couple from an Asian country, so not EU/EFTA. Our country has a double taxation agreement, but nothing else (no pension arrangements etc). This is probably irrelevant for this specific question but just mentioning anyway.

My question is this: how can we retain a Swiss bank account for a couple of years after we leave? The reason is that, we have multiple pillar 3 accounts and our pillar 2 accounts. We plan to leave these (in pillar 3 / vested benefits account) open here in Switzerland when we emigrate. Then over the course of 2 years after we leave, we slowly withdraw them. We have spoken to tax consultants, so we are aware of the withdrawal options.

But this point on retaining a local Swiss bank account is something we are trying to nail down. We know that it is difficult and most banks in Switzerland do not accept such a setup (where we live in Asia but keep a Swiss bank account). We do not have millions after all :) We also know we will end up paying a premium to maintain such an account, if the bank permits it. However, I think withdrawing the pillar 2 / 3 money to a Swiss account and then transferring through WISE / Revolut will save us a lot of money, instead of transferring directly to an Asian bank account in our home city.

Does this make sense or am I missing something?
If it makes sense, is there a Swiss bank you would recommend for our purposes - recently I have seen Swissquote which seems to be aimed at expats and seems to provide bank account capabilities.

Thanks very much in advance for your advice :)

Just a question to those with knowledge : There's a rumor on insideparadelplatz.ch that Neon could be sold.

The first naive question is: What would happen to the many accounts?

The second is more predictive: What would happen to the Neon model?

They've been so good for the little people over the years, that I'd be quite sad to see them disappear.

Hi guys. I'm thinking about invest a quite big amount (300.000 EUR) in Switzerland (I'm Italian but I've Swiss Residence) but I've a question: is it worth it to transfer those money in Switzerland and then convert in CHF? Should I pre-advise the bank about this transfer to ask for a (maybe) better commission?

I already invest in 3a Pillar and various ETF with IBKR: thinking about diversifying, is it worth to invest with VIAC Invest? Thanks for your answers!!

Hi guys,

My parents recently told me (aged 56 and 54) about one of their investments, that they made 7 years ago. They received a gift from my grandparents and invested more or less the whole amount in a UBS fund with the "Yield" strategy (2/3 bonds), as they said at the time, that they simply want to invest the money safely while my grandparents are still alive. In these 7 years, they have made a loss of 25K with this fund. Even though the investment has recovered a bit in the last two years (at a slug‘s pace), in my opinion they made a bad investment back then, as this defensive strategy is not at all in line with the investment period (7 years have passed) and they don't need the money in the near future. Furthermore, the fees of this fund are really high, that the dividends paid are always lower than them.

My question now is, what would you do and suggest in this situation? Would you wait until it has fully recovered or would you sell the whole fund immediately (and take the loss) and invest the amount in a fund with a more aggressive strategy (at least balance)? Or would you consider investing in one of their mandates? What is your suggestion?

Thank you very much in advance for your suggestions and advices!

By CHCORP I mean the ETF "iShares Core CHF Corporate Bond (CH)" (ISIN CH0226976816)

Can you tell me if my assumptions are correct?

1. If the SNB announces a change of the reference interest rate, whether it's a rate cut or a rate hike, as long as it was what the markets expected, then the price of CHCORP will not immediately be affected
2. If the SNB announces a change of the reference interest rate, and it's a big surprise compared to what markets expected, then the price of CHCORP will immediately go up if the announced rate is lower than what was expected, and go down if the announced rate is higher than what was expected
3. If the SNB announces a rate cut, whether it was expected or not, and whether the price of CHCORP goes up or not, then the yields will be smaller, which means that the slope of the curve of the CHCORP total returns (including dividends) will become more flat.
4. As long as the reference interest rate is not negative, and I'm looking to park some cash for ~3 years (edit: make that 4.49 years which is apparently the current effective duration of CHCORP), then I will almost surely get better yields with CHCORP than with a CHF cash saving accounts at a bank or even the CHF money market, and the risk is very low

Just got informed via email that Saxo is eliminating custody fees for all retail clients. I really like Saxos aggressive price strategy. This helps to keep the competition alive. Also media seems to pick up on it.

https://www.handelszeitung.ch/banking/paukenschlag-saxo-bank-verzichtet-auf-gebuhren-bei-etf-sparplanen-790143

Has this changed? I seem to remember when reading up about this first that in one account type (cheaper), you gave them the permission to lend your securities (or may have been used for lending), whereas in another type of account, you did not allow them to lend your securities - but I can't find anything about this anymore? Except the Yield enhancement stuff.

Has this changed? My question is in the end whether your securities are exposed to that risk by default or not.

Hi everyone,

my dad got recently fired from his job - he got a B permit and is an EU citizen. He’s been legally working in CH for over 16 years. His lease ends next week, however he can extend his lease.

• Does he need Swiss address for RAV registration? I tried to register him online, but I can’t pick another EU state, only Switzerland.
• If he’s unemployed and registered in RAV does he still need to pay krankenkasse?
• If he doesn’t cancel his permit does he still need to pay krankenkasse? For example, if he stays unemployed for a month in another EU country.

Thank you a lot in advance

WIR bank has its own pseudocurrency called, guess? WIR. 1 WIR should be valued at 1 CHF. The principle is the same as REKA, with some differences. The first is that the account can’t be opened to individuals. And the second massive difference is the following: WIR can’t be sold…

They can only be used to purchase goods from a company that allows you to spend in WIR (which must have a WIR account themselves, because there are no physical banknotes). And , surprise surprise, a WIR account costs 150 CHF /year. But why in the world would somebody exchange 1 CHF for a WIR in the first place? Well, WIR bank makes loans in WIR at a very competitive interest rates (even negative interest rates during covid, meaning that you would reimburse less that the nominal value of their loan).

I believe the level of perversion of the system created by this bank is quite high. If you think about it, they are putting money into circulation with an incentive on “good interest rate” basically generating a monopoly of cash and obliging more and more clients to transact in this pseudocurrency multiplying their WIR accounts, each one costing 150/year. Labeling it “local circular economy” as you are then obliged to spend this money with a list of corporates that accept partial WIR payments. What do you think about this system?

Now I‘ve had a bunch of discussions here with users whether or not you have to report every single stock trade. And the overwhelming opinion of others was that you don‘t and you can just fill in value at the end of the year and dividends. However, after paying attention to it now, it seems the Zurich tax software doesn‘t let you do that? If I have a stock of which I have owned and reported 5 shares last year, and now I enter 8 at the end of the year without filling in the buys of the additional 3 shares, I get a notification that start of year, end of year and reported trades do not add up and to please fix those numbers.

How do other people manage to just report the 31.12. value and dividends? And I have the feeling the software is making it very clear that you have to report all trades.

Hi there,

I have 75% VT and 25% SMMCHA on IBKR. I was wondering whether diversifying (more) would be an option for me? If yes, what other ETF would be worth investing in?

Thanks!

Hi all With the announced higher taxation for 2nd and 3rd pillar withdrawals - what is your strategy?

Remaining below 50k for 3rd pillar account(s) No buy ins for pension 2nd Use 2nd pillar to finance property

See this as open discussion to optimize finances :-)

My mother (divorced) is slowly approaching retirement (56 y/o). She‘s is worried about her future financial situation. Although she was always careful in spending her money, she never had a high paid job, doesn’t has big sums on her bank account and has a limited financial understanding. I would therefore like to accompany her to a financial advisor, but I‘m quite unsure where to head. In my mind there are currently 2 options: A) head to our local „Vermögenszentrum / VZ“ B) search for a honrorary advisor on finfinder.ch

Do you guys have any opinion on the 2 options or any further recommendations? And is there anything I need to pay attention to?

Thanks a lot in advance 🙏

Hi

did you consider having a small part of the stocks in your portfolio leveraged to replicate "leveraged VT"?

Since most leveraged ETFs are for the S&P500 one could approximate VT with 40% VXUS (or ACWX) and 60%VOO. So for example the following portfolios (I took ACWX in the backtest because it is older than VXUS):

https://testfol.io/?s=cfq2BubMYka

The results are quite close (although they diverge around 10% for other periods).

Lets say I want to take 10-15 % leverage on my portfolio with stocks (not other uncorrelated assets). Would you rather do it with margin or with leveraged ETFs and periodical resampling? My whole portfolio does not consist of stocks, therefore I have some diversification.

I know about the volatility decay and path dependence of leveraged ETFs, but I could imagine that the frequent resampling would approximate margin behaviour with leveraged ETFs and interest close to the risk free rate? I would assume the risk of ruin is not very high with a small percentage like 5-10% of UPRO, SSO or even TQQ in your portfolio?

Do you have experience with this (I am specifically asking about this combo, not ETFs like NTSX, RSSB, GDE, etc.)?

I know that active leverage for the long run can be beneficial (at least they claim so in this paper https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=2741701)

Do you think this approach would be reasonable? As I understand using leveraged ETFs would not count as using margin for being classified as a professional investor, am I right?

Hi All,

I have recently, and without warning, been terminated from my job in Switzerland, as they are closing operations here (energy and utilities industry). I was given an offer by the same company to work out of the London office, which I have yet to accept. I would be working in an office I knew I never wanted to work out of because of how management treats people (many of my colleagues and long time employees have recently left).The salary for London would be considered quite high, and putting me in the highest tax bracket. The resulting monthly take home pay from regular salary would be roughly 1k CHF less than what I was making here. They are offering me a title promotion and a one time bonus of 25k gbp, which would average out the take home pay to roughly what I was making now. I have a strong feeling the moment I start working there I'll be planning my move to get out of that company.

I also found out that I would qualify for the longest duration of unemployment support due to the length of my employment here. After running several chatgpt queries, it seems my take home pay on these benefits, as I look for work, would be roughly 2k chf less than what I would be getting from working out of London in the first year and 1k chf less in the second year (if there is one). I'm in my early 30s and have never taken any handouts in my life like unemployment benefits. I would actually be ok with slightly downsizing my life and would want to get a good job and starting working again asap.

Is it realistic to find a good job here in the next 2 years? Would you take the job in London and suck it up even though you know it will be soul crushing. What would you do?

Hi everyone,

We’re in the process of buying a house in Switzerland (it will be our primary residence), and we’re planning to use a part of our (wife and myself) 2. Pillar for the downpayment, i.e. the ‘Eigenmittel‘ or 20% the bank requires when starting a mortgage.

I would love to hear feedback from the community regarding the following questions, as I couldn’t find much when searching online:

- how long did the payout take? Once you submitted the documents to your pension provider, how many days/weeks/months did you have to wait for the payout?

- am I correct to assume that the money from your 2. Pillar needs to be fully transferred to the bank issuing the mortgage before the mortgage bank issues their ‘unwiderrufliches Zahlungsversprechen’?

- any tips you can share to make the process as smooth as possible?

This is my first time posting, I hope my post respects all the rules. Throwaway account for anonymity.

Thank you!

Hey everyone, not sure how I landed in Swiss Finance Reddit, but I’ve seen a lot of you recommending VT, so I thought I’d ask for advice on my situation.

I’m 24 years old and plan to invest monthly for the next 30 years without withdrawing any funds. I’ve made up my mind to stay consistent no matter what the market does. I understand the risks and consider myself risk-tolerant for the long haul.

Here’s the ETF allocation I’ve planned for now:

• VUAA (Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF): 65%
• EXUS (Xtrackers MSCI World ex USA): 20%
• ZPRG (SPDR S&P Global Dividend Aristocrats UCITS ETF): 10%
• The remaining 5% will be used for fun higher-risk investments, such as Bitcoin or other speculative stocks.

I want to keep things simple and avoid making frequent changes. I plan to review my portfolio every 5 to 10 years, and I’m not considering bonds early on. My goal is to maintain a portfolio that’s 95% to 100% in stocks. If you think this is a mistake, please let me know.

I do understand that past performance doesn’t guarantee future results and that everyone, including analysts, is just guessing when it comes to predicting the market. I’m still eager to hear your thoughts and whether you think I should change anything in my plan or keep it as is for the long term.

Thanks in advance!

Good morning,

My situation is as follows: with my current salary I can put 1000 to 2000chf aside/month (all inclusive). I need a part to remain accessible almost at all times for example for holidays or other: car problem... I would like to embark on a project of purchasing a main residence within 3 years (if the market stop its increase a little, much faster than my salary and my savings!). I have around €5,000 in France lying dormant, and savings in Switzerland that I am keeping for this possible real estate purchase. I would like to have your suggestion if it is better to invest this savings while waiting to find a property, or to keep it liquid? I want to start investing. I started reading a lot of posts here but I admit I'm a little lost. In broad terms I read that the rolls of the platform is ibkr for its low costs. On the other hand, I haven't exactly understood what it is for the tax declaration, can someone explain it to me? Finally, in relation to all this context, how would you plan this start in investment? -1 or 2 ETFs? More diverse? -how much to invest initially then monthly/quarterly/...?

• is it worth transferring my euros to chf? With wise?

Thank you in advance for your insights

Why would you buy VT when it pays out dividends? Or is there a version that does not and I am not seeing it?

Looking for a regular podcast that talks about investment for swiss people. I'm looking for something to listen to during my trip to work (40min daily more or less). The goal is to get more knowledge about etf, stock market, being more educated in finance and so on.

Any recommendations is welcomed!

Hi everyone,

I’m planning a long-term Buy & Hold strategy with a single global ETF. My goal is to keep things as simple and tax-efficient as possible, but I’m willing to accept slightly higher costs if it helps me avoid tax complications in the future.

I’m currently deciding between:

1. VT (Vanguard Total World, US-domiciled, traded via IBKR)

2. SPDR MSCI ACWI (Ireland-domiciled, bought on SIX via IBKR)

3. FTSE All-World (Ireland-domiciled, various exchanges, higher TER than ACWI)

I know that VT is the better ETF overall (cheaper, more diversified, can reclaim 15% US tax, etc.), but I have some concerns about US-domiciled ETFs.

• Moving abroad – If I leave Switzerland and move to a non-treaty country, could I face unexpected taxation on VT?
• Changing tax treaties – Switzerland currently has a favorable tax treaty with the US, but what if that changes in the future? Could I end up paying more tax or facing unexpected complications?
• IRS & tax filings – I would like to avoid extra paperwork or complications if possible.

Are these concerns realistically justified? Or am I overcomplicating things, and VT will not be a problem even if I move to another country in the future?

Would it be completely unreasonable to buy SPDR ACWI instead just to avoid these potential tax “complications”?

In this Reddit post, someone compared VT vs. ACWI on IBKR, showing that ACWI performs at 97% of what VT would return on IBKR—about 3% less in the long run. That difference is acceptable to me, as long as my concerns about VT/or a US-Domiciled ETF are justified. However, if they are 0% justified, I would obviously go with VT.

Additionally, I’ve been considering FTSE All-World, but its TER is nearly double that of ACWI. The main difference seems to be that FTSE All-World includes more small caps, but does that actually make a meaningful difference in the long run? Or is ACWI’s coverage sufficient for a one-fund portfolio?

Lastly: I noticed that IBKR charges exactly 5 CHF in fees when purchasing ACWI on SIX. Is this due to SIX’s pricing structure, and would it be cheaper/smarter to buy on XETRA or LSE instead?

Thanks for your insights!

Hi All, Raiffeisen used to have a nice app to do forecasts/calculate pension bringing together all pillars and additional investments but that was discontinued. Do you know any other app that allow to estimate overall pension?

I'm a mid 40's C permit holder staying longterm in Switzerland earning reasonable money with a few hundred k to invest (yes, it's been on my to do list for too long now...). I don't expect to have a lot of spare mental energy for a couple of years at least, I don't mind accepting a slightly higher cost if it makes it easier to deal with. Estate tax treaties / DA1 paperwork etc just feel like complications. This seems to speak in favour of an accumulating UCITS approach as far as I can see, so something like VWRA might be the best option. Any arguments I'm missing?

Why create a separate investment account- especially if you live in a canton where donating money to your children is tax free?

The child does not own the account, you’d have to manage multiple accounts and file taxes as the money is considered yours until the kid is 18.

Instead, invest all you want in your personal account(s) and make one donation when the time is right?