Finpension invest – a new robo-advisor for non-3a ETF investments

No clear fee table, forces you into ESG/SRI ETFs for almost all markets, currency conversion fee of 0.5%… pass.

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not sure if serious :slight_smile:


Details about our costs - findependent


I think this is one of the best solutions to invest for newbies

I am serious.

  • Custody fees are “0.09-0.2%”, how much is it at which sum? I can’t find a clear answer on their website.
  • You can’t invest in MSCI USA, Europe, Japan or Emerging Markets without ESG or SRI

Fees of our findependent investment solutions :thinking:

I only see a slider where it gives me the total fee, but not what the custody fee is at any give sum. I would expect a clear table like this one for True Wealth.

I also don’t consider the default strategies pure passive investing. They have a weight of 40% for Switzerland (30% SPI and in addition 10% SPI Mid, which would overweight mid caps?) and the rest is also not market cap weighted.

0.2% custody fee (for Hypi Lenzburg)
+0.09%-0.2% management fee
= 0.29%-0.4% (total annual fee), which is exactly what the slider shows?

The default strategies are far from perfect, I agree.
I read that they are trying to mimic the default strategies of comparable bank offers, so that they will always beat them with the lower fee.

Yes, they are pure passive investments, albeit with a strong home bias.


Of course, most likely everybody in this forum will pass

As I said, I would expect a clear table like the linked one from True Wealth. But I also concede that while it’s weird that they wouldn’t simply publish such a table, it is nitpicking. If only that would be the only problem.

But their non-market-cap and ESG/SRI portfolios disqualify them IMO if I had to recommend to a friend who doesn’t want to create a custom portfolio but just wants to invest the easiest way possible. finpension are the only ones who offer a solution with a market-cap non-ESG portfolio.

Not really. “Passive” for me doesn’t just mean investing in index funds, but also following market-cap weights. Correcting for the extreme home bias of Switzerland, EM are overweighted 60% and Europe and Japan 35%, US are underweighted by 20%, and Pacifics are missing completely.

It’s not market cap weighted, but it’s passive. :wink:

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See my edit above. For me market-cap weights are part of passive investing. Otherwise going 100% into the S&P500 would be fine, and although lots of people do this and think it’s fine, I don’t think so.

Finpension states that they are already making money with 2.4mia AUM:

https://finpension.ch/de/ueber-uns/geschaeftsbericht/

I don’t expect them to close down anytime soon.

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I would suspect they’d already be happy if they can keep a portion of their pillar 2/3a customers as part of their robo advisor scheme. From their point of view they automatically loose all clients once they cash out of their pillar 2/3a scheme. If they can keep a certain percentage of their population, this would already make sense from a business perspective. I would also assume that they did not redevelop the whole technical infrastructure and were able to reuse they’re existing platform with modifications.

But of course, for most of us here the benefits of this new investment solution arent that attractive. However I doubt we are a representative population in that regard.

Hence, I also don’t think this investment scheme will disappear anytime soon.

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Finpension’s private investment model is clearly not for the people on this forum who prefer a DIY solution and have sufficient knowledge to manage their own assets, on a regular basis and without fear of stock market movements. It’s not representative of the Swiss population who don’t take an interest in their pension provision until they’re 50, or who have been duped by 3a insurance salesmen.

However, I do find Finpension’s solution very interesting for people who have their 3a assets at home and would prefer an all-in-one, ready-made solution, their only concern being to set up a standing order (a double standing order) for the 3a solution and the private investment solution. The fact that 3a assets can then be reinvested in their private investment and an automatic, periodic disinvestment plan set up is also very attractive: there’s no need to worry and remember about having to sell X CHF at X time.

Over time, we’ll have to see if their solution develops in an even better direction, perhaps with lower fees or new products or investment strategies. Personally, I think they’re going in the right direction and will continue to grow.

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It remains to be seen if we will be able to use the DYI approach with our brains aging as we go way beyond the official retirement age… :crossed_fingers:t2:

I think I would be happy by then to have an automatic solution which will save me from potentially very expensive mistakes :sunglasses:

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What I miss in finpension invest is protected child’s portfolio like in Truewealth. I have one there and would transfer it immediately to finpension, but I cannot since I can only transfer to an account or portfolio in the name of my child.
@finpension : Do you intend to implement such a solution? Childs portfolio managed by parent until majority?

You can open up to 10 portfolios with finpension and we are working on the possibility for you to give the portfolios a individual name. However, such portfolios will still run under your name.

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Do we have anyone having a Finpension Invest account with funds targeting the US? There would be much use if we had access to one of their 2024 Flat-rate tax credit (DA-1) reports next year.

We could see what is inside, if we could somehow replicate it, and maybe if the tax authorities accepted it.

They updated the information on website.
It seems so far Canton Luzern has accepted this method. But other Cantons are yet to confirm. So it could be that ZH do not accept the reporting until they are convinced. But if they do accept, then Cantons should provide the guidance and adjust their own tax calculation for these ETFs.

Why the Tax calculation in ICTax be different than Finpension`s calculation for the same ETF. I find it a bit weird.

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