I’m late! But yes that is where I found the currency exchange information as well.
I did open my account (finally)
I do use Corner Bank “normally” but I came to notice the low fees for stocks buying/selling so I opened a DE GIRO account.
In general, I’m ok, I’m using it as a buy/hold account and so far I have just invested 10k into it.
Fees are really low compared to Corner Bank.
Regarding the user interface I have to say it;s very, very poor!
Not enough information about your transactions, nor about the status of your holdings, you really need to nail it down to find what you’re looking for and creating reports it’s almost impossible.
I’m quite disappointed, to tell the truth, but the low cost has a consequence I guess…
Anyone with a better expericne?
Cheers!
Hi guys,
Seeing as MP just posted an article about De Giro, there might be some interest. What is your feedback after these three/four months?
Anyone can compare it to IB?
Philippe
Out of interest, why are you using it over IB?
Another user of Degiro (custody account so no lending of stocks) here.
I have been using it for about 6 months without problems.
In my case, I use it over IB because of the much simpler interface and the easier to understand fees.
Price-wise it’s very comparable, in the same league, maybe a tad more expensive for most things, but cheaper for some others. But it definitely has that ryanair-esque smell to it when they charge you for little things like dividend payments… Avoid the default, non-custody account type - it exposes you to unnecessary counterparty risks with shares lending - savings on dividend fees is not an adequate compensation IMHO. With IB at least you get paid a little money if you choose to do it. Only 20k deposit protection, no SIPC protection. FX conversion costs quite a bit more than at IB, but still very favorable compared to banks, transferwise etc
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I checked the fees and looked much better than IB.
Degiro fees explanation was easier and opening the account was super simple!
Anyway, I just keep little money there, 'cause they’re quite new so…
To be honest I didn’t dig deeper into insurances and protections but from what I read shouldn’t be so different than IB.
The UI is “minimalist” to say the least. I think they should improve that, sometimes the info is not visible at first hand.
anyway, I use it rarely since the positions I’m holding there are long-term and I have no trading activity, although with that commissions would be interesting to play a bit.
cheers
Thanks for the write up.
I just opened an account there, it’s quite easy but it’s the same forms than IB, there are just small breaks there rather than one after the other.
It is indeed quite minimalistic but for my purposes of just buying & holding VT or VTI+VEA (yet to be decided, @hedgehog you do the latter, correct?) it’s extremely straight forward and I don’t see anything missing.
It wasn’t too complicated when bought VT shares on IB, especially not on the Mobile interface, but there is no room for error using DG’s interface.
I’ll keep IB until next summer when I turn 25, after that I’ll see if my stash is enough to justify 10 CHF a month (which would be the yearly cost of DG)
Btw, in his article @_MP wrote:
commissions on currency exchange: Interactive Brokers charges 0.01% of the transaction amount
On IB website it says 0.20 basis point, where basis point = 0.0001. So IB fee is actually 0.002%, right? That means you pay 2 USD for each 100’000 USD exchanged, and up to 100’000 USD, you pay exactly 2 USD, the minimum.
Side note: I think it sucks that there are different accounts to comment under the blog posts and on the forum.
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Thanks @Bojack for spotting this mistake. I must have been very tired when I took the numbers in IB website 
I will fix this asap on the article.
I know it’s not optimal but didn’t (and won’t in the near future) have time to integrate a single sign-on process on the forum.
Hopefully it doesn’t prevent you from commenting on the blog and participating here on the forum.
Cheers,
MP
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at @ma0’s request from another thread, I am sharing a link about Degiro’s discutable practices with how they help(ed?) their hedged fund to make money when handling customer orders/transactions rather than lower cost for their customers.
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Just finished my 1st year with degiro and so far was good. Just until this morning when i discovered that they are not offering anymore the possibility to have ETFs exchanged on NASDAQ or NYSE Arca.
Completely new and without any information sent or shared with me.
This is so unprofessional and this morning I called their support and simply they told me that i can take my stuff and go somewhere else if i’m not happy and guess what…that’s what I’ll do.
I’m now selling all my positions and when done, close up the account and bye bye degiro.
But i’ll also provide as many negative feedback as I can. Stay far from this bunch of unprofy guys,
P.
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That’s complete crap. I’m quite shocked.
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@Bojack: if interested, it seems there’s more behind this Degiro behavior. More details in this thread Finding ETFs on Degiro
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Hi everybody. I ran into the same problem with Degiro (no Vanguard ETF’s tradeable) and sent a mail to Degiro suppport, this is the answer:
Sehr geehrter Herr XXX,
danke für Ihre Anfrage.
Im Rahmen der Änderungen zum Jahreswechsel 2018 (MiFID 2) müssen zu jedem angebotenen Produkt bestimmte Informationen bereit gestellt werden.
Im Umkehrschluss können Sie alle Produkte nicht handeln, bei denen diese Informationen nicht zur Verfügung stehen.
Eine bereits bestehende Position können Sie weiterhin jederzeit verkaufen, allerdings sind Nachkäufe nicht möglich.
Wir stehen mit den entsprechenden Emittenten in Kontakt und hoffen, in den nächsten Tagen weitere Produkte zum Handel zulassen zu können.
Für Rückfragen stehen wir Ihnen jederzeit gerne zur Verfügung.
Ich nehme also an die meisten Produkte werden in den nächsten Wochen wieder aufgeschaltet. Aus diesem Grund bleibe ich mal bei Degiro und warte ab.
As already mentioned by @hedgehog, this law shouldn’t apply to Swiss resident. I would recommend to move to IB or Swissquote.
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Since a few days I can trade all Vanguard products I tried again. Problem solved.
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I’m currently looking for a first broker account somewhere. From what I can see online and here, the consensus seems to be that IB is the best and among the cheapest once you reach a certain threshold, which I won’t reach for some times.
Until then, I am looking at DeGiro, which is nice and glossy on paper, thanks to their low fees and simple UI. However, I’m worried about their securities lending practice (article 9, page 18, “Lending Securities”). I understand that if you opt out of this scheme (with a Custody account), they “recover” their gains on you with fees on dividends distribution and other points (Basic vs Custody, look for “Dividend processing” in “Extra Services”), but that otherwise the ETFs fees remain the same.
Their explanation document (page 7, “Securities Lending”) makes it sound like what they are doing is perfectly safe for the client, and I have no point of reference to know if their practice is common or, indeed, safe.
What is your take on this? Would the 1€+3% dividends fee of the Custody account (where they don’t lend your shares) be an “acceptable price” to avoid this, or to just live with it? Or just avoid them altogether? If so, to which alternative? CT?