Trying to nullify VIAC Invest’s offer. Great to see some competition.
Leading in quality and price - that’s the right strategy, @finpension.
Nice first step. Now go cut fees permanently, including 3a and vested benefits, so customers will love you for more than just 1 year. Worked for Vanguard, will work for you.
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And become a non-profit or what? 
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I hope investment platforms don’t become like mobile services where people move every year to different platform to get freebies 
and then move on again
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I think it’s not feasible for a Swiss company.
Switzerland have higher salaries and much smaller user base.
If we want Swiss robo advisors, we need to pay more.
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I’d be a bit concerned personally since it adds a lot of uncertainty for the long term viability (same way I’m hesitating with some of the neo banks). They still need to pay salaries, etc. It’s not like they’ll have trillions in AUM like vanguard so they need to get some income somewhere.
(they’ve been a much welcome competition to the big players with 1%+ fees, I’m not sure a race to the bottom will be viable if in the end most of them fold and we end up back where we started)
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It might end in a “winner takes it all” situation, like with Vanguard & Blackrock. To the benefit of all of us. I think the Swiss market is too small for more than 2-3 strong competitors to survive long-term.
I’m not supporting the Swiss finance zoo, wanting to protect poor endangered but ineffective neobanks & -brokers 
Not non-profit, but their profits become our profits. Investors cannot thank Bogle & Vanguard enough for draining the huge swamp of overpriced finance and democratizing investing.
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I think we need to think from another perspective
We are also living in Switzerland. What if we are told that all of our salaries are reduced by 50% because this profit needs to go to the consumers of goods and services produced by our employers.
I understand we should strive for lower costs. But we also need to understand the realities of market we live in. Fintech in CH is reducing the cost to serve but there is a limit to keep business viable. I don’t know what that limit is but it cannot be Vanguard like numbers.
If everyone in Europe & CH only buys American ETFs using American brokers, then it won’t be a surprise that most companies in these regions will disappear. But I am glad that all people don’t always have the idea to go for lowest cost
The winner takes it all will mean there is no winner from Europe and only US firms will win.
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That’s the same argument people favoring protectionism, tariffs etc. use. Has never worked historically. The effect of this is inflation and weaker domestic economy.
If Swiss providers are able to provide a real edge (other than just marketing “Swissness”, e.g. Finpension offering WHT reclaiming), they will survive & thrive. If not, tough luck, that’s capitalism.
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Time will tell. But I would be really surprised if a Swiss company can match vanguard or blackrock
Competition is needed, in my eye. If there is only Black Rock and no Vanguard, State Street, Wisdom Tree etc. we have a monopoly again.
Imagine only Frankly is left; they will increase the margins again (obviously).
It would be interesting to know how much Frankly, Viac and Finpension are covering of all the 3a assets - since the loyality towards Swiss banks is still pretty high, a shift of assets will take time.
Agree, and that’s where Wettbewerbskommission, Preisüberwacher etc. come in - cartel law
Around 140 billions in AUM for 3a https://sozialesicherheit.ch/fr/le-pilier-3a-un-veritable-defi-pour-la-statistique/
Frankly + Finpension + VIAC are around 7-8 billions together
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By assets invested the digital solutions share seems to be about 15% of the overall market. But I don’t know how comprehensive the source is.
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Sure, but you can’t compare Vanguard because they manage trillions of dollars, and 0.01% of a trillion is still 100 million.
On a different note, which you would likely also support, is a new investment idea (off-topic) from https://double.finance [1] that I recently discovered. If something similar were available for us in Europe, it would be fantastic and even more competition = lower prices.
In short, they replicate the index by purchasing and selling stocks, thereby reducing the TER to practically zero. I’m not sure about the implications of this approach for Swiss tax law, but it’s certainly a cool concept.
[1] HN discussion: Launch HN: Double (YC W24) – Index Investing with 0% Expense Ratios | Hacker News
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It looks interesting, but I don’t understand: isn’t it the same thing that e.g. Vanguard does for his ETFs? What is the difference?
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Comments in the link raise many valid points, including that their proposed model is unlikely to be sustainable with the 1$/month fee. They claim they get their revenue from securities lending etc, but thats then just a hidden fee. It just sounds too good to really work.
IMO it’s close to a case for the “Due Diligence” thread…
So, as others also mentioned, Finpension going to 0 “forever” would also raise questions regarding sustainability. Time-limited promotions and generally low fees are good enough for me.
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I mean yeah, the $1 is obviously not sustainable. They’re probably going for the same strategy as Robinhood - securities lending, margin interest, order flow information selling to the big players.
They are also SEC registered and your assets are not held by them, but by Apex Clearing.
Instead of buying the ETFs, you build your own, by just buying the underlying stocks. This way there is no asset management fee, whatever that would be for the ETF you’re replicating. It also obviously only works because you can buy and sell the stocks for free (no commission).
So in essence - yes, you are doing the same thing Vanguard does, just that you don’t have to pay a management fee.
Deja vu moment, I was reading this thread and had these two thoughts in my mind, then found that both were posted already, one of them by myself 
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I’ve listened twice to a podcast by one of the founders of Finpension during the last twelve months. He said both times that finpension is already profitable for quite a while and they’re saving they’re excess cash flow towards securing a banking licence (10 mio francs). They should reach that threshold within the next 2-3 years. While I do not have access to their books, it seems to me that finpension has a solid business model. Theyve disclosed* on their website that they had an operating profit in 2023 of 3.8 mio franks (https://finpension.ch/en/about-us/annual-report/).
*They are required to disclose certain financial information because they are a regulated entity.
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