3a solution from Finpension [2024]

Thank you both. Your arguments make a lot of sense.

99% Quality then :smile:
(as soon as the transfers finally reach my finpension portfolios )

Hello, I’ve just opened a 3a account with Finpension. I wanted to see how it was possible to personalise my investment strategy and how the application and the web version looked (in short, simple and effective, but far behind VIAC).

When I set up my new portfolio, I noticed that this fund: CSIF (CH) III Equity World ex CH Quality - Pension Fund DB (CH0253609066) was not available in the application or on the web (although it is listed on the website). In fact, only this fund is available: CSIF (CH) III Equity World ex CH Quality - Pension Fund DBH (CH0253609249) (hedged to CHF).

In itself, I have no problem taking a fund hedged to CHF, but I wanted to know if this is the case for current users or if this is something new from Finpension (would they have withdrawn the fund not hedged to CHF)?

I have the unhedged variant and would strongly suggest to NOT use the hedged variant as discussed in other topics here extensively.

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When searching for this fund, did you by any chance filter by fund house? For some reason, the unhedged Quality fund doesn’t show up when filtering by CS funds only. Just enter “quality” in the search field.

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Indeed, filtering option seems to be buggy at times when filtering via fundprovider, i.e. some funds of a certain provider aren’t picked up.

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Oh that’s why ! I was using filter to find the fund. Thank you very much !

Welcome to the Qrew! :raised_hands:t2:

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As you have already realised, there was a bug. A few assets were not assigned to the fund house. We have now made the assignment and implemented a mechanism so that this no longer happens for new assets in the future. Thank you for pointing this out!

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They proposed funds from UBS and Swisscanto most of them have no added TER in comparison to Credit (like CSIF EM).
Vanguard is own by their clients, so the model is a bit different.

The funds aren’t actually free. finpension has a contract with the fund providers where they pay an undisclosed amount of money for the funds (and custody). They certainly have to pay less than 0.39% p.a. but it will be a significant part of that.

This is a way to get more customer money into their own funds, which overall do provide them revenue. finpension is not a fund provider, so not comparable. UBS and ZKB could theoretically offer this but I don’t see this happening anytime soon, there isn’t enough competition (and the cost per customer is higher due to a much smaller population and thus, smaller amount of [potential] customers).

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Blackrock only mostly focus on B2B, because it makes more money.
For exemple, they can get 500 millions from a pension fund with one account manager. With clients, you need a lot of people doing the supports

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I don’t see that happening. A 3a provider in Switzerland cannot go more than 40 or 50% in shares across all clients, if I remember correctly.
They need to have a fair number of sleepers who are happy to get a bit of interest.

It’s also the law that makes the market uncompetitive.

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While the regulation indeed sets a limit of 50% for stock investments, Art. 50 Abs. 4 BVV 2 allows a foundation to exceed this limit if their annual statement conclusively demonstrates that the security and risk of the investments is adequate for the purpose of a pension fund.

VIAC mentions that when defining a strategy with more than 50% stocks:

Mit der gewählten Strategie profitierst du von den erweiterten BVV2 Anlagerichtlinien
(mehr als 50% Aktiengewichtung) was einem höheren Rendite-/Risikoprofil entspricht.

I don’t have any inside knowledge about what’s considered acceptable and what isn’t. It seems different 3a foundations also disagree on what’s acceptable (VIAC/Terzo being more restrictive than finpension with regards to foreign currencies).

Somewhat related (about pillar 2 but it’s the same regulation): Sind die BVV2-Anlagerichtlinien ein Auslaufmodell? | UBS Focus

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Something to share, since I’m not sure everybody knows.
After I moved from CS to Swisscanto, I noticed that I got just 1 dividend payment out of 3 funds, while before it was 3 out of 3.

This is the answer from the customer care:

Firstly, consider that all your funds are “Accumulation” (or “reinvesting”) funds. This means that dividends are not paid out but reinvested directly in your fund units, thereby boosting your performance.
The dividends you received relate to the recovery of withholding tax (the famous 35%). The reason why you have only been credited with an tax refund on the Swisscanto (CH) Index Equity Fund Emerging Markets NT CHF fund is that this fund is accessible to investors other than pension funds. The other two funds in your portfolio (Swisscanto (CH) IPF* I Index Equity Fund World ex CH NT CHF & Swisscanto (CH) IPF* I Index Equity Fund Small Cap World ex CH NT CHF) are reserved for pension assets and automatically recover the withholding tax on dividends directly from the fund. For the Emerging Market fund, we had to do this separately. That’s why only this fund has credited you with income this year.

The credit lines in your transaction register do not therefore describe all the dividends you received. To find out the details, you will need to go through each factsheet for your positions.

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Hi, I was about to switch to a custom strategy in Finpension.

Regarding the CSIF quality fund, I’ve found two different funds:

CSIF (CH) III Equity World ex CH Quality - Pension Fund DB
CSIF (CH) III Equity World ex CH Quality - Pension Fund DBH

They look very very similar, a part from the “share class” which is DB and DBH.
Do you know what is it?

DBH is hedged, not something I’ve ever really understood - there’s a lot of literature about its pros and cons, but I like to keep things simple so I went with the DB version.

The other bit which I don’t see discussed is that both of these funds lend securities, while other Finpension funds do not. Apparently securities lending can generate some extra income for the fund with - fairly - minimal risk.

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Thanks, I think I’ll also go for the non-edged version then.

While there certainly are those that find joy in edging, from what I’ve read hedging should be avoided.

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You may have read about it in the media: in mid-January, the US Financial Market Authority authorized trading in bitcoin ETFs for the first time.

We now offer one of these, the iShares Bitcoin Trust, as an alternative to the Crypto Market Index Fund. The two funds can be distinguished as follows:

Crypto Market Index Fund iShares Bitcoin Trust
Management Fee / TER 1.60 % 0.25 %
Diversification Bitcoin: 67.8 %
Ethereum: 23.1 %
Diverse Altcoins: 9.1 % Bitcoin: 100 %
More information Factsheet More information (no factsheet available yet)

If you wish to switch to the iShares Bitcoin Trust, you can do so now by adapting your individual investment strategy(ies). Please note the following:

  • The maximum weighting of crypto-currencies is still 5%.

good stuff! :sunglasses:

lower TER is definitely not bad.
whoever wants to play with non-BTC things can go direct.

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