3rd pillar investment solution from VIAC

Hi fellow Mustachians!

I’ve been reading along on the forum “anonymously” for some months, so I think it’s time to make a “first” contribution/post. And I found this interesting potentially Mustachian topic. I just read about this on FuW, and investigated further as I am in the market for a better=cheaper 3A-with-shares solution.
A new 3A solution (similar to the VZ 3A solution with a choice of various ETF’s) has been announced by VIAC, together with WIR Bank.
The FuW article below is a bit too superficial and optimistic-sounding about the “lowest costs”, so I decided to look at the details.
IMO, it’s cheaper than the similar VZ solution (which is 0.9% = 0.68% + ~0.2% TER) :+1:

As far as I’ve found out on the VIAC website:

  1. 0.52% fees on the value invested, but excluding the Cash position.
  2. Additionally average of 0.025% ETF fees.
    = Total Cost about 0.55%

I’m not totally sure if that really includes a realistic TER of the ETF, because 0.025% is a very very low ETF TER, if it’s the way as written above. Also I couldn’t find out exactly which ETF’s are available. I will try to find out more. In the article they mention a max. of 0.72%, which is still lower than VZ, but, well, doesn’t sound quite as good as 0.55% any more. I like that they do not charge the fee on the Cash position, which VZ does. The Cash position gets an interest of 0.3%. Not great, but it allows some flexibility without potentially paying 0.68% fees on a Cash position like at VZ.

Notice period when moving away from VIAC = 31 days
Fees for buying in / selling = 0%

I’ll investigate further and add to this post, when I find out more.
Looking forward to other Mustachian thoughts on this!

  1. Die VIAC Verwaltungsgebühr beträgt 0.52% pro Jahr auf das investierte Vorsorgevermögen. Auf dem Cashteil wird keine Verwaltungsgebühr berechnet. Mit der Verwaltungsgebühr sind die Kosten für den Handel von Wertpapieren sowie die Entgelte der Depotbank für die Konto- und Depotführung gedeckt. Diese Gebühr beinhaltet zudem alle Gebühren für die Stiftungsadministration, die Bereitstellung der Technologie sowie den Support. Es gibt keine Transaktionskosten, Retrozessionen oder andere Provisionen.)
  2. Bei den verwendeten Indexfonds und ETFs fallen innerhalb der Fonds Kosten von durchschnittlich 0.025% pro Jahr an (Standardstrategien), die direkt in die Indexfonds- resp. ETF-Kurse eingerechnet werden. Inklusive der Verwaltungsgebühr von 0.52% liegen die Gesamtkosten auch bei einer voll investierten Strategie unter 0.55%. Dadurch ist unser Produkt bis zu 3x günstiger als vergleichbare Produkte der Konkurrenz.)

Article from FuW 22.11.2017

Seit heute Mittwoch bietet Viac eine neuartige Vorsorgelösung zu Tiefstkosten an. Was hinter dem neuen Angebot steckt.
Allmählich drängen Jungunternehmen aus der Finanztechnologie auch in den Vorsorgebereich vor. Als erster Anbieter geht heute Mittwoch Viac am Start. Das Drei-Mann-Unternehmen aus Luzern will nach eigenen Angaben das erste rein digitale Vorsorgeprodukt auf den Markt bringen. «Unser Ziel ist es, den Kunden eine passive Vorsorgelösung zu möglichst tiefen Konditionen ermöglichen», sagt Co-Gründer Christian Mathis, der zuvor während zehn Jahren bei einer Innerschweizer Privatbank tätig war.
Tatsächlich unterbieten die Gebühren die derzeit am Markt verfügbaren Lösungen um Längen. Je nach Aktienanteil belaufen sich die Gebühren auf 0,17 bis maximal 0,72%, wobei sie auch allfällige Produktkosten und Depotgebühren beinhalten. Die tiefen Gebühren sind deshalb möglich, weil die Kosten nur auf dem Anteil des Vorsorgegeldes anfallen, der in Aktien investiert ist. Je tiefer der Aktienanteil, desto tiefer die Gebühren. Andere Anbieter von ETF-Sparplänen wie etwa VZ Vermögenszentrum oder Moneypark weisen je nach gewählter Strategie deutlich höhere Gesamtkosten aus.
Auch bei den übrigen passiven und aktiven Wertschriftenlösungen sind die jährlichen Kosten bei 1% oder höher. Im stark regulierten Vorsorgebereich sind die Anbieter bislang kaum Wettbewerb ausgesetzt und spüren deshalb wenig Kostendruck, wie «Finanz und Wirtschaft» in einem aktuellen Vergleich von 3a-Fondslösungen gezeigt hat.
Das könnte sich mittelfristig ändern, wie der Einstieg von Viac belegt – sofern sich Partner finden lassen. Denn Vorsorgelösungen können nur von entsprechenden Stiftungen angeboten werden. Im Fall von Viac ist es die Terzo-Vorsorgestiftung der Bank WIR, als Depotbank für die Wertschriften fungiert die Credit Suisse. «Es war sehr schwierig und zeitaufwendig, eine Bank zu finden, die mit uns zusammenarbeitet», sagt Mathis.
Das Beispiel von Viac zeigt, wie wichtig es ist, in die private Vorsorge neue Ideen und Modelle einzubringen. Die tiefen Gebühren sind dank einem schlanken Geschäftsmodell möglich. Die ganze Abwicklung läuft über eine App auf dem Smartphone, wo auch sämtliche Dokumente hinterlegt werden. Für das kommende Jahr ist geplant, auch eine browserbasierte Version herauszubringen, die eine Anmeldung am Computer ermöglicht.
Im Gegensatz zu allen übrigen Anbietern verzichtet Viac im aktuellen Umfeld auf jegliche Anlagen in Obligationen und setzt stattdessen auf eine Zinskontolösung. «Obligationeninvestments sind derzeit nicht vertretbar», sagt Mathis. Zu der potenziell negativen Rendite kämen Zinsänderungsrisiken. Als Alternative bietet die Bank WIR an, den Teil, der üblicherweise in Obligationen investiert würde, zu 0,3% zu verzinsen. Das entspricht in etwa dem aktuellen Durchschnittszins bei 3a-Konten.
Dieser Mix von Aktien- und Kontolösung ermöglicht es den Sparern, die 3a-Vorsorge individuell zu optimieren. Bei einem tiefen Aktienanteil fallen entsprechend wenig Kosten an, die Zinslösung muss nicht zwingend beim selben Anbieter liegen. So liesse sich derzeit bei der Bank WIR über das 3a-Konto ein doppelt so hoher Zins (0,6 statt 0,3%) erzielen. Der Cash-Anteil kann aber auch bei der Hausbank deponiert werden.
Das Modell von Viac könnte Nachahmer finden und den Wettbewerb in der Säule 3a ankurbeln. Zwar haben in den vergangenen Jahren einige Banken passive Lösungen lanciert. Allerdings differenzieren sich diese kostenseitig nicht deutlich von den aktiv gemanagten Produkten. Zudem zeigt sich, dass es sich gerade im aktuellen Umfeld lohnen kann, Gelder in einem Mischfonds aktiv zu managen. Passive Produkte, die starr an eine Obligationenquote gebunden sind, haben in den vergangenen zwei Jahren deutlich schlechter performt. Aktive Fonds hingegen weisen einen grösseren Spielraum auf. Für sie hat es sich zuletzt ausgezahlt, stärker auf Immobilien als auf Obligationen zu setzen.

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The website is https://viac.ch/

The strategies are below:


They are offering up to 97% invested in stocks for 0.53%

The fees on ETF are very low because they have negociated with credit suisse all CSIF have no comission

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Hello,
A couple of days ago, I started to think about taking out my Swisscanto BVG Oeko 45
https://products.swisscanto.com/products/de/Produkte/BVG-3-Anlagegruppen.html#/detailView/CH0011315915
from my cantonal bank’s account with the usual horrible fees. (there was not really a better option when I started investing about 10y ago).
I was thinking about the ZKB 75 and the VZ Solution but when I saw VIAC, I decided to give them a try. The account is created in-App and it taks not more than 5 Minutes to get ready. First I planned to transfer my funds from the cantonal bank, because I have stopped any Investments in third pillar this year after reading Obermatt’s Excel. Now I am not sure about mainly because regarding the low fees of VIAG, having a reductions of this year’s tax of about CHF 1900 sounds tempting again.
Also they offer the possibility to have the 20% Cash on another bank’s account which would allow me to go to a 0.5…0.7%-ish bank with the cash.

After having read through the FAQs for me here are the pros/cons:

PRO

  • they allow up to five portfolios (starting spring 2018) other banks would allow not more than two.
  • they teach beginners about ETFs, Funds, etc. https://viac.ch/academy/
  • no fees for moving money in or out (ZKB charges an ugly 0.65% for each operation so 1.3% in total is lost)
  • you choose a strategy but you can adjust by hand (as at VZ). no fees for manual adjusting the strategy. (I guess no more rebalancing happens afterwards)
  • defining your own strategy is possible from spring 2018. I think that means it would rebalance automatically to your strategy.
  • No investment in bonds necessary.
  • a separate view for all paid fees

BE CAREFUL:

  • rebalancing only once per month (saves fees but…)
  • the factsheets obviously show the H.I.S.T.O.R.I.C.A.L. performance.
  • they seem to have started today. I had a hard time to find them on google. Google News doesn’t know them
  • the third-pillar-ETF market may eventually start to move. so it may be necessary to go somewhere else in a year or two (which tells me not to invest into some ZKB-ish solution with a 1.3% transaction fee)
  • fees apply when at the moment of rebalancing there is need to do forex over all customer’s accounts. the fees may be between 0 and 1.5% of the amount but historically would have been arond 0.05% (FAQ > Fees). This may be a reason to manually adjust the strategy and then avoid rebalancing every month.

CONS:

  • only in DE / FR / IT (maybe a problem for some people here)
  • still only possible to invest into ETF’s they chose (as everywhere)
  • management/opening an account only in-App (the promise in-Browser for spring 2018)

I’ll definitely check Obermatt’s Spreadsheet again!

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Ah, thanks Wapiti! I was on the website but completely missed the “strategy” tab :man_facepalming:
The strategies and total costs are promising then, because most of the solutions costs are really at around 0.53-0.55%. The higher costs (0.6-0.72%) are only for more special “sustainable ETF” strategies.
So in a “Schweiz 100” I’m getting exposure to mostly SMI, SPI Extra and SLI for almost 0% ETF TER. As a private investor I’d have to pay 0.1-0.2% TER for these ETF’s and some annual depot fee (depending on where you bank, exception being Postfinance).
IMO the overall costs with this 3A solution are really coming down, and are getting quite close to reaching a similar cost-level of similar ETF’s held outside 3A. Finally maybe the tax benefit of 3A will not simply be eaten away by higher bank fees.

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Thank you for posting this info. Had a look at the web site: seems quite transparent and well explained !
Also interesting the explanation of their “Pooling and netting” strategy (https://viac.ch/academy/pooling-und-netting/).
Will consider it for next year.

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I asked them to specify how of each index contains each strategy. Currently, only the indexes used are displayed but not the %

Might be interesting.
Do we have a list of the available ETFs to create our strategy?

Isn’t in the second page of the pdf?
There is the exact allocation of every etf in the strategy.
Very promising, I’ll be switching over for sure. Global 100

Whoops, hadn’t seen the strategy factsheets.
So Global 100 seems interesting but heavy Swiss home-bias, which kind of make sense for such a product but might not be the most mustachian thing.

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now, it is. I have asked to add it :wink:

It’s not optimal, but it’s not at all an issue. If you know, how much the fund is Swiss bias, you can compensate with non 3a investement.

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I think is regulated by Law that a certain percentage must be Swiss stocks.
Is not that bad Swiss market is heavily correlated with global market. Roche novartis etc are doing business only internationally

Hey, thanks to everybody for investigating! Looks like a promising competitor for the 3a pillar…

i got a bit interested when the list most of their underlyings as 0%TER:

but indeed, if i check out CSIF SMI, it says
CSIF
same for the other CFIS funds.

what do you think makes credit suisse offer funds for free??? lik, in terms of the “free lunch” dogma

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Thank you very much for your Feedback regarding our Factsheets - we already improved them. :slight_smile:

Checkt it out: https://viac.ch/strategien/

Regards

Daniel
Team VIAC

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We were very happy to find out about your discussion regarding our new 3rd pillar app!!

First of all: We plan to roll out the english version in spring!

And it looks like you guys could give us a lot of feedback! If you want we could arange a meeting in zurich to show you some behind the scene stuff and have a little chitchat to improve our product further!

Regards

Daniel
Team VIAC

and if you wondering how I found out about you Google Alerts helped me :slight_smile:

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Hey Daniel,
thanks for you positive words :wink: I’d actually be very interested in some behind the scenes visit!

My primry interest is to have a some world portfolio (like my <0.1%TER portfolio) that would pay me a significant premium for the illiquidity that come with the 3a framework. here (excel sheet) i tried to simulate this, and adjusting to VIAC’s costs it looks like
VIAC 3a where you can see the premium would be order of magnitude between 3% and 5%. althoug a bit lower than 0.68% of VZ, VIAC’s 0.52% TER still eats off the tax advantage in the big picture.

so for the cost i like the development, but for me it looks like “not yet there”.

for the technical stuff i can just argue with my taste.

  • i’d prefer a VTI over SP500: less TER, more diversification, but US domiciled (in case VIAC can’t qualify as qualified broker)
  • I’d rather have a very small swiss allocation, according to the default world portfolio allocation
  • if a big swiss portion is required, then I’d have SPI extra higher weighted such that Nestle/Novartis/Roche have the same weight as the top SPE extra positions
  • I like that i don’t see CHF hedging, because on the long run hedging is a cost without benefit
  • taking out the cash part from the fee and paying interest is a clear win over VZ (altough only 3% of the portfolio…)

on the big picture I am happy to see some new 3a solution that might make it interesting for me again!

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Dear all,
i just got a reply from VIAC, which contained some very nice details:

why can they go 97% stocks when before the usual limit was 80%, or even 50% a few years back? => they seem to have still the same regulation, but VIAC is able to apply it to their whole business instead of per customer (what they say is what most others do). Nice Trick!

how can TER be 0.00%? well it is for institutional investors (i still don’t get it actually) but there does apply purchase fees of up to 0.05%. There was no specification if these fees are included in the 0.52% custoddy fee. I’d assume it

looks like a potential cost advantage of 0.4% vs VZ. 0.52 still feels high, but looks like things go the right direction!

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I would say that VIAC has a contractual agreement with Credit Suisse. They pay a negotiated amount. It’s not free, it’s included in the commission paid by the final customer to VIAC.

“Purchases of class ZA units must be explicitly provided
for in the asset management agreement, in a similar written agreement, or
in the cooperation agreement. Compensation for the fund management
company and for asset management is charged through the aforementioned
agreements. Costs incurred by the management of Class ZA units
are payable to the fund management company on the basis of a separate
contractual agreement”

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Well spotted rolandinho!

Looks really interesting. I had decided not to invest in 3a for the reasons outlined in Nugget’s graph for now but this comes closest to changing my mind. A bit of a premium seems reasonable for the tax benefit.

I especially like the fact that it can be managed electronically and no posting things like with VZ.

The obvious fund seems to be the global 100. Even though it has 40% in swiss companies. Compared to VWRL with a TER of 0.25%, 0.53% and a tax benefit look like good value to me.

Anyone have any reason why this isn’t as good as it sounds? And has anyone been through the registration?

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I registered. Smooth process and very modern professional feeling. Next week I’ll transfer my first money

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