Assuming the majority of one’s wealth is tied up in etfs.
At what wealth level do you consider it reasonable to open a second brokerage account (besides IB)?
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Random:
1M total NW
500k at single broker
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Thanks. I had the same random figure in mind.
The background was mainly related to security.
The 2 factor auth via phone may be fine. But at some point it just seems not secure enough.
We had a near incident with somebody trying to scam my wife’s ZKB account. It was really close.
That makes you think about stuff like that…
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I would say above 250K already, i would start dipping toes with second broker to experience their platform etc. Overtime, the distribution of assets amongst brokerages can change.
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I’ve reached the point where I start to get worried about having such a high percentage of my NW in Interactive Brokers, but I also can’t decide what to do about it. Ideally, I’d want a Swiss broker that doesn’t charge a custody fee where I can park some ETF shares, preferably with free inbound and outbound asset transfers. Cornertrader right now seems like the best bet, at least now that they’ve dropped the custody fee, but I can’t quite bring myself to pull the trigger.
On the other hand, I realize the risk of IB going bankrupt in such a way that I’d lose my shares is probably pretty low, so is it really worth it?
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I did some review and only good Swiss options are
Saxo or Swissquote. Corner trader have higher trading fees & I think they use Saxo in backend.
I didn’t choose Saxo as they are still not really Swiss with ownership (majority) in China. But I think Saxo is more competitive specially if you want to buy US ETFs. For SIX ETFs, Swissquote is also decent because they have flat fees.
My recommendation would be to not worry about 120-200 CHF annual custody fees that comes with Saxo/ Swissquote. I understand you would prefer zero but let’s face it, you can’t have it all 
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If it doesnt have to be Swiss… what do you think about degiro?
The stamp duty is really a competitive disadvantage for the local industry.
I think if European brokers work then for UCITS ETFs Degiro is very competitive too. The only drawback with Degiro is that you cannot buy US ETFs. For me it’s not a problem as my love for US ETFs is lost anyways but I know some people will shoot me down if I say that loud
Practically for around 3 CHF per trade , one can buy SPDR ACWI (quoted in CHF) per month and this can be very good solution. For WEBG ETF, there is 0.25% forex cost to account for.
Since I already had IBKR, I didn’t feel like getting another international broker, so I went with SWQ. But if I didn’t have IBKR, I would probably have taken Degiro.
In fact in very beginning - I tried to open account in Degiro but their onboarding app was not working and then I opened account in IBKR. At that time I didn’t know much about costs etc.
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Doesn’t tick all the box, but PF isn’t that expensive (max 90chf per year custody, ~25CHF per USD wire back to IB).
At least I consider it the cost of diversification (less than 200 per year, including wiring dividend back twice a year is pretty cheap).
(And for me was the benefit of having an extra swiss bank account, might be convenient if we’re headed back into negative interests rate)
Outbound transfers should be pretty rare (and they’re not that expensive, iirc they’re around 100 CHF, which for me is massively cheaper than trading a 6 digit number with a swiss broker anyway)
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If you’re willing to consider Swissquote despite the custody fees, you may also consider TradeDirect, the digital platform from the BCV (Banque Cantonale Vaudoise). They have the same fee structure and samish fee ranges.
I’d not go with Cornèrtrader for assets custody. They may have improved themselves but when I used them a few years ago, their security policy was awful (you had to ask for two-factor authentication, password reset was pretty easy and those sort of things). They were on the verge of improving when I left them and I believe they now have proper TFA by default but it did leave me with a taste of amateurism when it comes to cyber hygiene and security.
I don’t really care about trading fees or stamp duty, I’d continue to buy on IB and just transfer a large chunk of shares to the other broker very rarely.
This, on the other hand, really bothers me. I looked at Cornertrader ~9 years ago before going with IB and I remember it also looked a bit amateurish then, it’s sad to see they haven’t improved since then.
It’s more than that, isn’t it? The basic account is 60chf a year, then there’s 72chf a year for custody of the shares. Or have I read it wrong?
I know I shouldn’t worry about 120-200chf a year for safekeeping my millions, but once you go Mustachian it’s hard to go back. 
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There’s no account fees if you have assets. And I forgot they lowered the prices as well (it’s 72chf per year now for e-trading indeed so lower than the 90 CHF I wrote earlier)
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Someone else had the idea to use cornertrader just for depositing your funds there, and I thought was was neat.
You could do something like this: Use ibkr up to 500K, transfer those to corner and then just start at 0 again in ibkr.
Of course depends on rebalancing effort. Would be good for just VT. No trades necessary.
E: Forgot Dividends. But you could just transfer those out and invest in ib as well.
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This is precisely what I’m thinking: transfer x00K of VT somewhere else, transfer USD dividends back to IB once or twice a year.
So SQ would be 200chf a year, Saxo is 120chf and PostFinance would be 72chf. Cornertrader would be free, but dodgy. SQ and Saxo charge 50chf for outbound transfers, so does Cornertrader but there’s an additional 10chf charge for price correction, and PF charges 108chf.
PostFinance is actually looking pretty good… Any other options I should consider?
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To note that securities lent are no more considered segregated and in case Saxo goes insolvent, you can only file a monetary claim that is neither privileged, nor insured by esisuisse, as per the Securities Lending Risk Disclosure of Saxo: https://www.home.saxo/-/media/documents/regional/en-ch/risk-disclosure-ch-en.pdf?revision=79951b85-2efe-4e61-9d1b-856370624e19
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Since the security aspect is pretty high - OP seeks diversfication despite he is direct owner of his shares of an ETF - securities lending may be not suitable for OP.
Moreover, Geely Group holds nearly 50% of Saxo Bank shares; for some an important information, that a chinese company is behind, for some this is not bothersome.
I personally made a similar step this year; I kept a part at IBKR, and the other part I transferred to ZKB. Meanwhile, all investments are at a Swiss bank, since I switched the employer. At least, there are no custody fees, as for IBKR.
Thanks. That would indeed be a no go for me.
I hope not to derail the thread, but at interactive brokers securities lending is backed with cash collateral seggregated in your name, right?
Yes, it is. [source]
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I had an account with Schwab and would consider that again. They also gave a credit card that you could withdraw cash directly, which is handy.
Saxo does this also:
Saxo is your direct counterpart, and ensures that active loans are supported by collateral of at least 102% of the loan value in a segregated Swiss custody account, for security, in the unlikely event of a borrower defaulting.
But I wouldn’t use that either if it’s about being on the safe side. Mainly because I don’t understand enough about it.
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