How to invest a cashed out pension fund?

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#1

Hi guys and girls,

I have been following the FI community for 3 years and I have been living in Geneva for the last 5 years. I have spent some time investing in real estate but I am also interested in P2P, ETFs, stocks.

You will find below a FI situation I would need your inputs on.

My partner worked for an international organization (non UN) in Geneva for the past years and amassed a reasonable amount in her international pension fund. When she left, she was required to cash this out.
She has no existing AVS/3rd pillar contributions in Switzerland. She does however have a reasonable amount in her home state retirement fund (which she cannot touch until retirement age), three rental properties outside of Switzerland and a small amount invested in ETF (mostly in EUR).

How would you prepare your retirement with this cash if you consider you will need it in appro. 30 years ?

  • You increase ETFs investment in Degiro ?
  • You transfer it to a specific retirement funds ?
  • You keep pushing on real estate properties ?

For info, we plan to settle in Switzerland and potentially even retire here and are still renting our place.

Thanks for your thoughts and expertise!
Cheers

#2

Hello,

Don’t invest in P2P.

It would probably make sense to contribute to AVS from now.

Investing more in ETFs is a good idea.

It is difficult to say if it is a good idea to invest more money in properties abroad, especially if we don’t know the country and the numbers. Alternatively, you can buy swiss real estates mutual funds, which are more diversified. Some of them have tax advantages but I don’t know how much wealth tax rate you pay.

For the safe part, you can buy obligations de caisse at the Caisse d’Epargne d’Aubonne at 1.25% for 7 or 8 years. No more than 100k CHF, so maximum of 1’250 CHF of interests. You can addittionalIy buy some at the Caisse d’Epargne de Nyon at 1% for 10 years. No more than 100k CHF, so maximum 1000 CHF of interests. In Geneva as a couple, you can deduct max 3’300 CHF (or even more sometimes) of interests and contributions to pillar 3 b for the cantonal and communal taxes.

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#3

Hi REandSTOCK,

Where can I find some more info on obligations de caisse? I have never heard about it before.
Are they insured like a bank deposit/savings account or are these bank bonds?

Thank you and sorry for high hacking the topic :slight_smile:

#4

Yes they are covered by the same insurance as the accounts. They are not “regular” bonds.

#5

You can compare Swiss medium-term notes and fixed deposits here:

You’ll also find plenty of information about medium-term notes (obligations de caisse) on the same page.