TradeDirect from the BCV (Banque Cantonale Vaudoise) is another option. They’re mostly on the level of Swissquote and are fully online though their platform isn’t the most user friendly of them all: Advantages and pricing
They do have quarterly custody fees of 0.025% or CHF 10 (minimum) + VAT so 0.1% / 40 CHF per year (+ VAT).
If you hold more than CHF 10k with them, you can get a free banking solution at BCV (checking + savings + Visa Debit + Twint). I haven’t tried it but the family formula (free from CHF 15k) includes a free Silver credit card for those for whom it matters.
I have accounts at both. They both have their advantages and disadvantages.
Swissquote offers many ETFs at SIX for a flat fee of CHF 9 (excl. exchange fees and stamp duty) and also mutual index funds that aren’t even available at Saxo or IBKR. They also offer realtime prices and access to the order book without additional monthly fees. However, Swissquote charges custody fees, CHF 85 for the (optional) Swiss e-Tax statement and the regular trading fees and currency exchange fees are too high, in my opinion. If you don’t trade much, your portfolio is large enough for the custody fees to be relatively low, and you only ever trade CHF ETFs, Swissquote may be a reasonable option.
In case you want to transfer your positions to Swissquote, they again have an offer to reimburse the transfer fees up to CHF 500:
Saxo charges no custody fees, offers a free Swiss e-Tax statement, has very reasonable trading fees, and also a reasonable currency exchange fee (0.25%). If you want realtime prices, you need to pay CHF 8 per month for SIX, if I remember correctly. As hinted above, Saxo doesn’t seem to currently offer access to many Swiss mutual funds (which may be relevant if you want CHF bond funds). Saxo’s reporting functionality seems to be more extensive (should be identical to what you had at Cornèrtrader when they were still using the Saxo platform).
I now have portfolios at IBKR, Swissquote and Saxo. The combination of Swissquote and IBKR is to get the benefits of both (Swiss index funds and low cost for global investments) while reducing the risk of a single account. The risk for me is not really loss in case of broker bankruptcy (as ‘regular’ broker bankruptcy shouldn’t result in any investment loss) but more the risk of an account being temporarily inaccessible or possibly hacked. Saxo I added recently as an additional Swiss broker at no extra cost (no custody fees) but it wasn’t strictly necessary and would also have been happy staying with just IBKR and Swissquote.
To me the percentage of my net worth is more relevant than an absolute amount. Whether I have 250k in total or 10 Mio., if I want multiple brokers to avoid the risk with a single account, the goal is to have a significant portion of my money at a different broker. But I wouldn’t open 10 broker accounts for 10 Mio. To me, 2-3 brokers sounds sufficient no matter how much money I’ll accumulate.
I kind of agree with brokers diversification as they tend to be acquire.
I’ve started in 2016 with Binck which was great and cheap.
In 2019, Saxo acquired them and my portfolio migrated to them and the next 3 years were really bad with higher fees, issues with dividends and tax declarations.
Since last 2 years they really improved and lower their fees but J Safra Sarasin just acquire Saxo this year.
I have also IBKR for the US etf and BforBank for French funds and small caps.
Thanks for your extensive, helpful answer! I have a follow up question in two parts, which may seem a little “newbie”:
I believe I read somewhere that the exchange fee for currency exchange at Swissquote is 0.95%. However, if I only trade in CHF and buy ETFs listed on SIX with CHF, then this exchange fee is irrelevant for me isn’t it? (At the moment I only trade in CHF)
If I did decide to buy an ETF in another currency (eg. USD) is it not possible to get around the exchange fee by changing first with Revolut to USD then transferring the USD from Revolut directly to a USD account on SQ?
This is mostly correct, yes. The only exception is that distributing ETFs distribute dividends in their base currency. For a global stock fund that will almost always be USD. I.e., you still pay 0.95% to convert the USD dividends back to CHF. However, as this only applies to the dividend amount, it’s likely not a huge concern. And you can avoid it by investing in accumulating ETFs.
(If you exchange more than 50k at once at Swissquote, you can get better rates).
Yes, it is possible to use Revolut or Wise for currency exchange to save on fees. Besides the inconvenience, you should check possible transfer fees, though. For CHF/EUR likely not an issue as domestic and SEPA transfers are usually free or very cheap. However, USD transfer fees may be more significant (and may involve intermediaries). Swissquote accounts are multi-currency accounts where you get a single CH IBAN that can accept CHF, EUR, USD and more.
Also, while the CHF 9 flat fee also applies to various USD-traded ETFs at SIX, if I remember correctly, regular trading fees apply to ETFs at foreign stock exchange.
If you want to invest more than a tiny position in foreign currency, I’d recommend you to use Saxo or IBKR for that part.
I have never used Corner Trader. But as far as I know, Corner Trader used to rent the software from Saxo. From that perspective, it might make sense to take a look at Saxo first. That way, you would have a platform you are already familiar with (assuming I am correct).
You can Google “SaxoTrader” (old name: SaxoTraderGo) or check out this YouTube-Video to see what Saxo’s platform looks like. Maybe it will actually look familiar to you.
eTax tax statements are free and there are no monthly account fees.
Sorry, friend of mine opened an account at Corner and fell for the announced Forex rate and spread. Result that those rates were only valid for virtual positions. When he changed real CHF to USD they charged like 100 times that announced rate. And on top of that the real exchange with forex only worked with a phone call to some idiot broker. On top of that they charged 30% withholding tax on U.S. dividends even if he filled out all the needed forms.
I think that company won their banking license in the lottery. They spend a lot on marketing with promises they don’t keep up. I told my friend to report them to the police for robbery, but he didn’t.
Before he thought he had exchanged money and just had a virtual short CHF/long USD forex position and a long CHF and short USD money position. What idiots! (He moved to IB). BTW: it was a 7 figure account.
I feel similarly to what has been described above. I appreciated the responsiveness of my contact person at Corner.
However, the platform migration resulted in a significantly less user-friendly interface. In addition, historical transaction data was lost, including a clear overview of fees, taxes, and purchase prices in the portfolio view.
The recently announced fee changes led me to open an account with Saxo.
My question is: is it sufficient to initiate the transfer using the Corner transfer form, or are there any steps required on the Saxo side as well?
You have to inform Saxo of the transfer too. This is easily done online under the respective menu option.
I myself am also in the process of transfering my biggest positions from Corner to Saxo (while selling the smaller positions as the transfer fee is too big). Hoping everything goes smoothly - the paper form from CT asked for some information I did not have.
There is one problem: if you have a monthly dividend paying stock you may not be able to transfer it. They say it may take a month to transfer and any corporate action stops the transfer.
My ETFs and some stocks (only the biggest, smaller positions I will sell rather than transfer) were successfully transferred from Corner Trader to Saxo. Took a bit more than two weeks. On the Saxo side, it is a short form online, where you enter the data of the incoming positions. Straightforward. On the Corner side it is a paper form (sigh!), but the information is also quite clear and not all fields are needed (I left some empty, where I had no idea what they asked for). Corner then called to confirm the transfer and I gave the green light. All in all, quite easy.
In my case the process only required a week from sending the form by post to Corner Trader / Saxo online declaration and the transfer of the ETFs. Corner Trader even sent me the empty form by email again after they were contacted by Saxo because they hadn’t received the completed form yet.
I only had three ETFs to move, so perhaps that made the transfer faster.
I envy you guys, i started the process to transfer from Corner to IBKR end November and its still not done…. I asked twice and was told its in the making…. good times
Friend did hold some monthly dividend paying stocks. Had to sell it at Corner and buy again at IB. They state that any corporate action terminates the process of transferring which takes one month.
It is an electronic transfer, should take hours not a month!
Those are exactly the customers they are losing. The argument “to avoid losing them” doesn’t hold: the easier the outbound transfer, the faster customers leave. The more complicated the process, the fewer customers actually use it.
If they want to keep their customers, they should make them happy before they think about leaving.
Mit dem Lesen und der Teilnahme an diesem Forum bestätigst du, dass du die Forum-Richtlinien gelesen hast und damit einverstanden bist sowie den Haftungsausschluss auf http://www.mustachianpost.com/de/ akzeptierst.
