They offer a bank account (seems be at Hypothekarbank Lenzburg, like neon), a debit card and a securities account.
They provide:
interbank exchange rates
no account fees
if invested in securities, all in fee capped at 0.85% p.a., no additional fees
your payments will be automatically rounded up and will be transferred to a savings account
What are your toughts? Are you already using it, what are your experience?
Will they be able to cover their costs just with 0.85% p.a.? What kind of investments are available?
“Bei uns umfasst die Jahresgebühr alle Kosten, die mit Deinen Anlagen verbunden sind. Flat, ohne Produktkosten oder andere versteckte Dinge.”
If they’re using Index funds and ETFs as their founder claims, these investment funds will most probably have different expensive ratios. That means that Kasper&'s own share must be variable, depending on you investment strategy. That’s anything but “transparent” as he claims in the same interview.
Let’s just say it’s not for me.
With you, a stock/ETF transaction can cost the average investor up to 1.45%: 0.5% for trading + 0.95% FX for currency conversion from CHF to USD (+ hidden fees and taxes). But I’d still rather pay these one-time costs for the low-cost VT ETF available than 0.85% a year.
With 130’000 CHF invested, their fee is CHF 1’000 a year. I think I am not the only one here who would an invitation to an apero riche once a year for this price.
On the other hand, if you don’t have a penny, it’s probably as cool as neon to get an account and a Mastercard.
I just learned about them today and I kind of like the offer. Not as a broker, too expensive and too limited investment choice.
For me they are the first real Swiss alternative to Neon as a payment card solution for foreign transactions. Since for me Neon is interesting only because of the Mastercard exchange rates, Kaspar& is basically as good as Neon for what I want. The idea with the microinvestments (each payment is rounded up to the next Franc and invested) is a bonus. Instead of getting only Mastercard rates with Neon I get that plus investing a tiny amount regularly on the go. That won’t make a difference, but it’s still more than I get with Neon. Plus they don’t push their woke/green credentials quite as much, which is also nice (they do offer “gender smart” investments, so if you like woke, you can get that with them as well).
So I am seriously considering switching to them. Any experience with them? Or thoughts why I really should try them or shouldn’t?
Well, I would say we are proud here when we can misuse a financial product to our benefit, not to the benefit of the company behind it, by using it differently than the company wants us to. From what I see in this case you are right! Indeed you can use this product for foreign currency exchange at Mastercard rates, like neon.
The only drawback is that a cash withdrawal costs 5 CHF.
In essence we are the wrong target group. They want to target the 85% of under-40s they say don’t invest and for them it might be a good first step. We already invest and are price-sensitive, so for us their main sales pitch almost by definition won’t work.
Still, there’s room for mutual benefit. They’d earn some money from card transaction fees at least and they are only in the very first stage of growth, i.e. they must worry about having customers at all, and a bit less about making those customers profitable.
As for the rounding up, realistically I won’t increase my investments by 10 or 20 CHF per month or whatever I would invest by rounding up purchases, too much hassle. So those would be on top of what I do anyway, as would be any return I might earn. Again, tiny sums, but still more than I get with Neon. And the 0.85% fee is out of the question for any real investment, but for a few hundred or a few thousand CHF it’s not terrible either.
At the very least there’s a real alternative to Neon for foreign card transactions now. Neon is years ahead in terms of account services (but still not as full-service as say CSX) and has the tree-planting paid tier. Kaspar& offers (micro-)investments.
Really? Just checked the link again and it’s working… they announced today they’re closing accounts by December 8 this year.
Here’s the full text:
Kaspar& beendet Kooperation mit Hypothekarbank Lenzburg
Das St. Galler-Fintech-Startup stellt das Direktkundengeschäft ein und beendet die Kooperation mit der Hypothekarbank Lenzburg als Depot- und Partnerbank.
St.Gallen, 24. November 2025
Die Kasparund AG (Kaspar&) wird sich künftig auf das Dienstleistungsgeschäft für Banken und Finanzdienstleister in der Schweiz fokussieren. Aus diesem Grund hat Kaspar& die Partnerschaft mit der Hypothekarbank Lenzburg beendet. Betroffene Kundinnen und Kunden wurden von Kaspar& bereits direkt informiert.
Seit 2021 hat Kaspar& mit der Hypothekarbank Lenzburg als Partner- und Depotbank seinen Direktkundinnen und -kunden Dienstleistungen im Vermögensverwaltungsbereich und Kartengeschäft angeboten (siehe Medienmitteilung vom 21. Mai 2021). Diese Services hat Kaspar& nun per 08. Dezember 2025 seinen Kundinnen und Kunden aufgekündigt.
It’s working for me again. Before that, I also got a 404 error. Now old blog posts lead to a 404. I suspect they are currently deleting old content and accidentally deleted the new press release.
Diese Services hat Kaspar& nun per 08. Dezember 2025 seinen Kundinnen und Kunden aufgekündigt.
I hope the customers were informed earlier. Otherwise, that would be a very short deadline.
Feels crazy to me. I only started paying attention to the finance world in 2022, and in these 3 years all of these banks / brokers were closed or went bankrupt:
CH:
Credit Suisse (had an account)
FlowBank (had an account)
Swiss4
Radicant
Kaspar&
International:
Admirals Jordan (had an account)
TD Ameritrade: bought by Schwab, so not a closure, but put big mergers on my map of possible things to happen.
@rho4 : Yapeal is/was another neo-bank who changed its course - they are now focusing on corporate solutions, but did some ads in the earlier days for retail clients.
I honestly do not see the USP for Kaspar&.
Can you tell us what more accounts you hold, just for short time…
OK, a few decades of history: I had an account at the small Datek brokerage that went big later. Then it was bought by Ameritrade which then was bought by (or merged into) Toronto Dominion. Commissions first went down then up, then down again; but they gave almost unlimited margin.
I almost stayed there for that endless margin multiplier but then I thought that maybe they would find me when I try an O’Hare play.
Yeah, but what sense does a lottery ticket make when the office goes broke paying you. No O’Hare play there…
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