Would you consider PostFinance a good broker diversifier to Swissquote when it comes to fraud protection or in case of bankruptcy?
I cannot imagine a PostFinance CEO liquidating my positions, changing his name, and spending the rest of his life in an exotic country.
I also expect that fraud by lower-ranking employees would be fully covered, considering the size of the bank.
When it comes to bankruptcy, I suppose I trust a bigger, systemically important bank that does things right (asset segregation, etc.)
In terms of cost, PF is the only big bank that offers low prices—mainly the capped custody fees. I could also buy on Swissquote with a 7–9 CHF commission and then transfer to PostFinance.
The only issue is that PF uses Swissquote as a backend, so I am not sure it makes sense to use it for diversifying risk.
Any thoughts? Other alternatives for this objective?
IB feels too far from my comfort zone for “sleeping well at night,” but I am open to hearing arguments in favor of or against it.
Would you consider paying UBS/ZKB++ a 0.3% custody fee for peace of mind? I know costs matter a lot in the long term—but so does your peace of mind and staying the course when crisis comes.
One important point: we’re not talking about someone in his early 20s, where even a total loss could be replaced easily by future human capital—the goal is to protect multiple decades of accumulated savings.
Last time I checked, the BCV, through TradeDirect, had a solution on the level of Swissquote when it comes to costs. I wouldn’t specifically trust them more, nor less, than any other broker but that can offer diversification.
That’s an alternative for sure. But:
From TPS: Saxo Bank is a private company. As of March 2025, the two principal shareholders are the J. Safra Sarasin Group (a Swiss private banking group) and the founder and CEO Kim Fournais.
In Switzerland, investors deal with Saxo Bank (Switzerland) Ltd, a fully licensed Swiss bank. Some people will argue that Saxo Bank is still a foreign broker, but a Swiss investor will only deal with the Swiss entity, subject to the same rules as any Swiss broker.
Privately owned
Foreigner?
Was it this broker that a chinese company had a big share in the past?
I would trust one of the big banques cantonales (Vaudoise, ZĂĽrich, Bern) more than Postfinance. I have the impression their finance business is too political.
No. Precisely because they use Swissquote’s backend and still seem to:
"Die beiden Geldhäuser arbeiteten vor allem im Bereich der technischen Anlageplattform lange zusammen. Gewisse Produkte von PostFinance könnten ohne die Kooperation mit Swissquote gar nicht angeboten werden. "
I can only speak for ZKB, but have the exact opposite opinion.
While being considered one of the safest banks in the world, they have a more international footprint than I’d care for.
…which isn’t wrong per se. But if I’d care for international footprint, it’d be for international diversification. Which is why I can and do hold securities at a foreign broker.
Trustworthy EU-based broker in a well-regulated country.
(EU regulation in countries like Germany tends to somewhat better protect customers against fraud)
Yeah, and they’re a more expensive than SQ for transactions, however custody is essentially free. Considering my style of buying only, regularly, and not even every month I estimate my total costs with PF to be up to 50CHF/year in total.
I was with UBS, in fact the forum convinced me to go to PF to avoid the +0.3% ER of UBS. UBS seems to be more sticky in terms of letting you buy US ETFs (as in, it didn’t let me)
Wouldn’t that be the same for any and all other entities with banking license in CH?
This sounds like a hassle, and expensive. I think only IBKR sends securities for free, UBS charges 100CHF per position, PF refunds up to 800CHF of charges. Plus I don’t know if it’s even possible to do electronically. Transferring from UBS to PF required a printed SQ form delivered to UBS and wet signed in presence of an important-looking guy (in a minor BL UBS branch!) - the boy cashier didn’t know what to do, along with a copy of my passport and residence permit. Then they phoned me 2 weeks later, asked security questions etc to confirm if I want the transfer to happen (it happened within minutes from when I said yes). Can’t imagine doing it every time you buy something!
Other than that I’m happy with PF
Edit: I feel PF is maybe even more boomer than minor cantonal banks, meaning I think they’re the most boring of the boring banks, which to me is a good thing. But of course, PF for investing is…SQ so all that goes away!
Perhaps I didn’t write it correctly.
The idea is to pay once the 100 CHF to transfer half of your investment value to the new broker.
Then every 2-3,5 years you pay another 100 CHF to transfer again “half” of the stocks you bought during this period so as to end up again roughly 50-50.
At this (st)age the yearly contributions are a relatively small percentage of the total value. So you do not need to do this process frequently.
But yea… the fact the SQ is PF’s backend perhaps it doesn’t make sense anyway.
Another point in favor (or easier to swallow the pill) of a big bank (e.g. ZKB/UBS) is that the custody fee is applied to half of your investments. So a 0.3% would actually be 0.3*50%=0.15%. I know, fees matter, but 15bps is roughly the TER diff between VT and VWRL.
I guess / I hope. Perhaps I am thinking it too much
The diversification criteria were fraud protection or bankruptcy.
While I kind of agree with you about the international footprint of ZKB (I only have anecdotal information about this subject) I would still claim that there is a low risk of fraud or bankruptcy for this bank.
Perhaps I am overreacting after seeing Madoff’s documentary at Netflix . Seems to me that it is much easier for a “single boss” (privately owned company) to bypass the rules VS a publicly listed company with diversified stakeholders
I am actually looking for a second broker to split the eggs into two baskets. Any good pair that could do the job.
BTW “stress test” question: If you had 5M, would you trust Saxo for the next 40 years?
Maybe, maybe not. I simply don’t know enough about other people
It’s therefore more interesting for me to read about direct testimonials from people in this forum or about numbers.
i already use three -: IBKR, Saxo and SQ. so by the time I will have 5M, I would have gained enough confidence with three of them. Right now saxo is more than half of my portfolio. Personally I think all of them are fine. These are not scam banks.
I have three brokers because I don’t like having everything at one place.
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.
