Agree this is a neat idea. Wonder how feasible it is to do this on a regular (semi-annual) basis?
If you do this with US-ETFs, I guess you want the target CH-broker to be a Qualified Intermediary. Is PostFinance QI? From CT we know they are not. Is Strateo QI? Swissquote?
See what IB responded when I asked if fees apply. They did not mention any limitation in terms of frequency.
Me: “What are the fees of such a transfer on IB side?”
IB: “This transfer will be free of charge as you are transferring out an European asset. US assets are free of charge as well but for Asian positions the following fees apply: https://www.interactivebrokers.co.uk/en/index.php?f=14718”
What about the safekeeping and administration annual fees?
(Actually mine in a swiss bank are 0.167% and I’ve been told it is a very good deal.)
A few banks/brokers in CH do not have annual safekeeping / custody fees. One of them is Cornertrader I think. Postfinance has a 90 CHF/year fee that you can use up for transactions. But no fees proportionate to account’s value.
Not yet sure, but Schwab UK might be an option for the ‘eggs in different basket’ problem: holding US ETFs seems to be problematic for EU brokers due to PRIIPS and for CH brokers due to Stamp Duty Tax and Qualified Intermediary Status… so why not have half of your US assets in Interative Brokers and the other half in Schwab UK … IIUC you can trade for 5$ in US, so “almost for free”. They don’t seem to have a custody/account fee (but I need to double check). The downside I found so far are cash related though: Cash out is 25$ and FX fee is 1% - so even though they have a CH-IBAN converting CHF to USD is a no-go. But I guess you could do CHF->IB, FX @ IB, USD->Schwab.
So I guess the choice could be: IB+Schwab - or transferring the securities every now and then to a CH-based broker…
The advantage of Schwab could be that it is well-established, so sounds somewhat secure…
I see where you are coming from. And good to know there is also this Schwab option.
If mostly holding US domiciled securities then a CH based broker may not work (but I don’t know, worth to ask the CH broker).
As another diversification element I prefer to not only hold US domiciled securities (also because of some uncertainty regarding inheritance tax). The US domiciled securities I keep on IB, european based securities go to Postfinance.
agree, I think a good diversification happens on many levels:
Hi @male, I was also thinking about this option so I’m interested in others feedback (even if I think no-one here has a Schwab account until now).
Regarding wire transfer fee: according to their web site, under the Special Service Fee Waivers section, “With $100,000–$499,999 in Household Balances, you will receive three free online domestic wire transfers per quarter.” Might be an option when FIRE ?
From Switzerland I’m redirected to schwab.co.uk -> I wonder if we would face the same problem we fear now with IB next year, when Mifid II will be applied ? For me, that would defeat the point of choosing Schwab against - i.e. - CT… it would be nice to have this cleared without having to wait 'till next year, I’d like to move away from my SQ account in the next few months
(edit) if I try to open an account, I’m redirected from ‘Charles Schwab, U.K., Limited’
to ‘Schwab international’… confused 
Swiss customers are handled by Schwab USA, Schwab UK is only for about 3-4 specific countries.
You can see them here:
https://international.schwab.com/public/international/nn/open_an_account
mifid is completely irrelevant since Switzerland isn’t in the EU.
Regarding Schwab USA for Swiss people: thanks for the confirmation, I think the same but I’ve been mislead by the redirection to the UK by “discovery” of my swiss IP address.
Regarding Mifid, I was specifically referring to PRIIP regulation for retail investors or people who are not classified as “professional”, that is the requirement for fund providers to provide to non professional investors a PRIIP KID as of 1 January 2020. This seems also to apply to swiss investors (see here and here). Quoting @thepoorswiss: “In 2018, the Swiss government voted two new laws: Financial Services Act (FinSA) and Financial Institutions Act (FinIA). Once again, I am not going to go into details of these laws. They are more or less a copy of the European laws for Swiss investors. They also enforce each fund to offer a Key Investor Documented (KID) to all Swiss investors. So, they cause exactly the same issue to Swiss investors that PRIIPS caused to European investors.”
You are (fortunately) mistaken in two ways:
Schwab are ignoring mifid for their EU clients despite having that UK office, you can’t seriously suggest they’re going to suddenly care about Swiss laws.
they very much do. In order to do business with clients you need to respect the law for the country of residence.
do you have a source that states this?
I honestly hope IB and other non CH brokers (like Schwab) will continue to offer us those products…
The topic has been broadly discussed here. If you have further infos your contributions will be surely appreciated as this “risk” concerns many forum members.
What you say is true… for US law. For everyone else, you’re wrong and you need to spend some time learning about how international law works. If what you claim were true, all brokers would have to charge Swiss stamp duty
I don’t have the link anymore, but someone I know showed me a page where FINMA explained that FinSA only applies to persons and brokerages located in Switzerland.
There was some guy on the MMM forum, look for recent EU related threads.
CT didn’t but in a private email an employee wrote me they are going to apply it this year. When I asked how much would it be, no more answer, very unprofessional, so CT is not an option for me anymore.
This link may be useful: Swiss Custody Fees Compared (they also don’t know CT is going to apply a fee this year)
It’s possible to compare the fees with different scenarios under this link https://www.moneyland.ch/en/onlineTrading/index
Obviously, it would depend how much money you have under custody.
But in top, you have most of the time:
Some banks are refunding the stock transfer fees from one broker to another one.
For exemple: tradedirect up to 500.-
After, it’s a question of features and personnal feeling:
I am using 2fa with corner trader. Recently I changed my phone, so I had to change the credential. I could not do it myself, the option to change it yourself is gone. So I had to call them, then they resetted the 2fa and I could provide the new credential. So this loophole is kind of mended. But of course anyone could call and pretend to be me, so its still not perfect.
My biggest problem with CT is their lack of professionalism. You can see that they are very small. You have issue with 2fa? Bad luck, the guy responsible for this is not in the office today, try tomorrow (seriously, true story bro). It seems to me like the majority of their RMs are Russian, which is strange for a Swiss company.
Personally, I’m quite happy with Swissquote, except the 2.- for outgoing transfer even in CHF.