I finally wrote a message to IB asking how much would it cost to transfer some ETF (irish or us) to a swiss account (I said Swissquote and Postfinance).
They replied stating that it is free from them. The receiving bank might ask for something, but for what I know both PF and SQ are free.
I assume diversification (there’s already a few threads about that). Postfinance doesn’t cost that much (90CHF per year, which can be used in trading credits, and allows making the regular banking account free).
Would be interesting to have some first hand experience. Otherwise it might turn out that the transfer is free, but the customers support work is not and so on.
It is only if you understand it. I’ve read their fees page and got so many different types of transfer that I got confused.They don’t have something like “Transfer to european’s brokers is free” written anywhere.
I wouldn’t trade anyway if you already have IB, just transfer e.g. half of your holdings to diversify. The dividends can either be transferred back to IB (afaik costs 2 CHF) or reinvested using the trading credits.
AFAIK postfinance still allows trading US ETFs, and as other said even if that was an issue, you can anyway hold a US ETF position without any trouble. And still even if that was an issue (it isn’t so far), if you do worry about diversification you might not be far from the qualified investor threshold as well (2M wealth iirc).
It is true though that the (recoverable) withholding will be 30% instead of 15% but that’s likely a tiny opportunity cost in the end (esp. if you have enough assets that you worry about diversification).
What do you mean? Isn’t it US withholding with a standard swiss broker? I’d be surprised if it doesn’t work (but don’t have direct experience).
I read in another thread that Postfinance is not a Qualified Intermediary and that 15% can be claimed back with DA-1 and the remaining only by filling a direct form to the IRS. That’s why I assumed it does not make sense to hold US domiciled ETFs at PF.
I’d be very interested hearing more about your experience:
Who billed the 90 francs? Was it for the transfer of securities or for the transfer of chocolate?
Was it to Swissquote or PF?
How much time did it take for the securities transfer?
What was the process? Was it easy?
Durch das Lesen und die Teilnahme an diesem Forum bestätigst du, dass du den auf http://www.mustachianpost.com/de/ dargestellten Haftungsausschluss gelesen hast und damit einverstanden bist.