Create SmartBroker Sparplan (recurring investment) Tutorial

[yetanothername]

Hi

Due to feed-back that SmartBroker is difficult to handle I have decided to create a tutorial (April 2023).

Preconditions:
You need to have a SmartBroker account opened.
The DAB Secure Plus for creating QR codes needs to be installed and configured.

Read for Referral, otherwise ignore

If you don’t have a SmartBroker account, DM me for referral, we both get some cash. It’s up to you.

Note: If you don’t have enough money in your account, it will not execute the trade. So you can skip months.

Step 1:
Click on Sparplan, then “Sparplan anlegen”

Step 2:
Enter ISIN of your desired ETF in the search field.

Rate: Enter the desired investable amount.
Intervall: Select monthly, bimonthly, quarterly
Ausführungstag: 1st or 15th of the month.
Start/Ende*: you can select a starting month and ending month (optional).
Erhöhung: Planned annual increase of savings amount - IMHO only makes sense if you can do SEPA direct Debit.

Step 3:
Confirm by entering code from your DAB Secure Plus app on your phone under QR-TAN:

Step 4: Done

Step 5
Set up transfer form your bank account to SmartBroker. The amount will get invested automatically at the preset date of the next month.

Disclaimer:
I do not get paid for doing this. I have no affiliation with SmartBroker.
Interface may change over time.

[yetanothername]

@SwissMousse

Still looking for a usable buy-and-hold broker in EU to diversify a bit though.

SmartBroker is set and forget. DM me for Referral link.
You can create an ETF-Sparplan (Autoinvest: Sparpläne mit ETF, Fonds und Aktien zum Vermögensaufbau).
Some funds are free.
VWRL and VWCE are available, 0.2 % per trade (min 0.80 €). If you buy for 1000€, you pay 2 €.

Pros:

• Transfers from Revolut accepted.
• Accounts in various currencies available: EUR, CHF, USD. Be aware of fees like SWIFT. I’ve only ever used in EUR, which is SEPA.)
• No currency conversion fees because you can transfer in from Revolut in EUR.

The fees may be slightly higher than elsewhere, but if you want true automation, then it’s the best broker I know.

Cons:

• Site is German only.
• The interface is nothing to be proud about.

[Dr.PI]

Last time I was checking SmartBroker they were opening accounts for German residents only I think. Is it possible to open an account with them completely online, i.e. without sending paper mail?

P.S. the same level of automation can be also done with Flatex, but I think Revolut is not accepted as a reference account, so you will need an intermediate account in EUR. But basically all ETF buying plans are free.

[SwissMousse]

I will check it, thank you!
My EUR portfolio) is static, two accumulating ETFs that in principle do not touch anymore…
So transaction fees are less important, but having no holding fee is.

[San_Francisco]

@Luk_nuts

Apparently @San_Francisco has tried out some German brokers.
I am not sure what would be the best solution at the moment. Smartbroker? Flatex?

I have tried quite a few that are available to Swiss residents, yes.

@yetanothername

• The interface is nothing to be proud about.

And that’s putting it mildly, for Smartbroker. Probably the most atrocious banking/investment interface west of Poland that I’ve ever seen/used. Put me so off that I’m actually paying a bit more at Consors (same bank as behind Smartbroker) and DKB.

But as you said it, it can be set and forget. And their downloadable PDF statements are actually surprisingly usable and professional.

@Dr.PI

Last time I was checking SmartBroker they were opening accounts for German residents only I think. Is it possible to open an account with them completely online, i.e. without sending paper mail?

I’ve opened Smartbroker from Switzerland (I think I went to the German Post for identification).

[yetanothername]

@San_Francisco

Probably the most atrocious banking/investment interface west of Poland that I’ve ever seen/used.

Ah, you’re exaggerating.
Setting up one or two recurring investments is not difficult.
Choose the fund.
Pick the amount.
Choose period weekly, monthly etc and execution date.
Set up recurring transfer.
Done

[San_Francisco]

@yetanothername

Setting up one or two recurring investments is not difficult.

It actually was.
I wasn’t exaggerating.

[San_Francisco]

off-topic rant

I’ll show you how “smart” it is:

Notice where it says “Name” in the search box?
Let’s try some from their “Sparplan” list then…

We can literally copy the first parts of the name and insert:

…and it fails to find any:

Using the ISIN, it actually does find it.
Of course we should verify…

Great.
Wanna know what font colour and contrast they used in 2021?
(I had that screenshotted, and yes, that was on standard browser settings, no custom CSS):

Input our rate and interval…

Why does the date/month selection default to the current month, even when the “1. des Monats” has already passed? You’re welcome to try this on the last date of the month (30 april), where it’s impossible to buy, and it will still do so.

Let’s direct debit the savings rates from my bank account…

Entering my payment account’s IBAN number with spaces (between every four-digit block) though…

So despite the unhelpful error message, we delete the spaces and it takes it:

No really, trust me, it took the account details despite the redactions.
Side note: Think you can change your mind?
You better have good manual dexterity and click that round radio button - cause clicking on the “DAB Konto wie oben” or “Fremdkonto per Lastschrift” labels won’t work.

But we shall press ahead…

Above that screenshot is a lot more the legal mumbo-jumbo and investor information.
Can’t press that button “Zahlungspflichtig einrichten” though.
It will only become operational once you tick that checkbox “Ich bin damit einverstanden…”.
Is there any helpful message to help you out finding that though? Of course not.

But that’s it. The plan will show up in our list of of savings plans:

[yetanothername]

@San_Francisco

It actually was.
I wasn’t exaggerating.

I meant no insult.
Your screenshots seem to be based on an old interface. I’ve been literally able to create a new savings plan in under two minutes.
Tutorial here:

Create SmartBroker Sparplan (recurring investment) Tutorial

Hi Due to feed-back that SmartBroker is difficult to handle I have decided to create a tutorial (April 2023). Preconditions: You need to have a SmartBroker account opened. The DAB Secure Plus for creating QR codes needs to be installed and configured.

Read for Referral, otherwise ignore

If you don’t have a SmartBroker account, DM me for referral, we both get some cash. It’s up to you.

Note: If you don’t have enough money in your account, it will not execute the trade. So you can skip months. …

[covfefe]

@San_Francisco

Probably the most atrocious banking/investment interface west of Poland that I’ve ever seen/used.

that could be a big plus! you set it up a free ETF sparplan once, and its so painful to change that you never go there again!

[San_Francisco]

@yetanothername

I meant no insult.
Your screenshots seem to be based on an old interface

No offense taken
Screenshots are from today though (except the one with the lack of contrast for the font).

@yetanothername

I’ve been literally able to create a new savings plan in under two minutes.

No doubt.

Admittedly, the actual “difficult” part (that was difficult to get to work at all) was in setting up the direct debit from my external bank account (which you didn’t). For that, the interface threw even more aggravating errors at me back then - which they seem to have improved on somewhat since then. After hitting that snag, I paid more attention to the other, smaller issues of the interface.

The rest was just… “cumbersome” may be the better word.
And I still think it’s an overall bad interface today:

• Are many people going to use the form to search for securities by their name, instead of ISIN or German Wertpapierkennnummer? Probably not. But it’s embarrassing how it prompts you for “name” of the desired security - and then fails at copying & pasting from their own website. And that they didn’t get around to addressing that in two years - where they could have, literally, just remove the “name” label.
• Same is true for the IBAN format. Not that hard to implement autoformatting or at least throw up a helpful error rather than the misleading “Bank nicht vorhanden”.
• Not too mention the other rendering errors with the overlapping text and buttons.

PS: Don’t get me wrong. I do appreciate nice application interfaces that use native widgets. But I’m very happy with boring and ugly interfaces for my investment needs - as long as they otherwise are functional, intuitive and work reliably.

[yetanothername]

@San_Francisco

direct debit from my external bank account

Interesting! Which bank are you using?
Are you using a Swiss bank account or a foreign bank?

[San_Francisco]

Been using a locally-anchored bank in an EU country.

Few Swiss banks support SEPA direct debits AFAIK and EU banks can choose not to accept them.