The bank account is not the problem. Forced choice in brokerage services is.
I mean, yes you can, if what they want is illegal. There are reasons for not allowing total freedom of contract, no matter how transparent it is.
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Since foreign banks in Switzerland must comply with the same FINMA rules as Swiss banks, and since they don’t require employee account consolidation but accept a disclosure together with pre-clearance and trade information, it is possible that that the consolidation rules of Swiss banks might be excessive.
If you are a Swiss bank employee and you think that the required account consolidation with your employer forces you to pay higher fees or prevents you from switching to a cheaper alternative, use this form of the Swiss Price Surveillance Authority to place an anonymous complaint.
When you do so, please don’t copy/paste this post but describe the situation in your own words.
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Last time I tried, I got:
I wrote a very detailed explanation comparing fees of Swiss banks to IBKR, showing an absurd multiple of ~5 across different investment amounts.
But by all means, flood them some more. Maybe it rises on their priority list.
So just to be clear , the expectation is that let’s say UBS should allow their employees to use IBKR? But the same employees are selling UBS brokerages and banking services to other customers.
If I think from employer perspective, the expectation to use services offered by the company is not a bad expectation
I often feel that it’s not good to cherry pick things. A job comes with a full package -: remuneration, pension plans, perks, bonuses, and some expectations
If everything else is great (assuming the offer was accepted by employee) then shouldn’t expectations be also fulfilled?
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Reminds me of the cook who said «I would never ever eat in my restaurant»
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As a contractual condition but for free or even compensated on top? Maybe. Else it is illegal and void.
There are other things that the employer would like, e.g. unlimited non-competes. Void. Or maybe outright buying your lifetime working output (aka. a slave). Illegal.
The relationship between employer and employee is not equal in many cases. That’s why there are laws to ensure societal goals are met. But this isn’t a politics board.
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I think you are exaggerating a bit by equating different things to brokerage services. But this isn’t politics board.
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Has someone tried to challenge it in court? Even via an ombudsman so it remains anonymahahahahaha!
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Legally, you’re certainly not required to bank and trade at your employer.* The Zivilgesetzbuch (ZGB) (Swiss Civil Code) would have to spell this out – it doesn’t.
However, your contract with your employer may include additional terms, as apparently UBS does for the matter regarding the topic title. Those apply to you once you sign the contract.
Migros could just as easily add iffy terms to their standard work contract: as a Migros employee, you can only shop at Migros … except that everyone, including Migros, would conclude that this is perhaps a little excessive. 
UBS gets away with this because only a few people complain. And if it became a more public topic, say via the Preisüberwacher, the public reaction/opinion would probably be along the lines of “oh, look at these poor bankers complaining about fees … tsk tsk”.
Anyhow …
If I were (to become) a UBS employee,
-
I would first check whether I am married (or in a legally almost equivalent partnership), whether my spouse (or equivalent) doesn’t work for UBS, and have the custody account in the name (or shared) with my spouse.
Certainly, my employement contract with UBS does not have clauses for where my spouse does their banking and trading. -
If above does not work, I would try to get an exception included in the contract, or, if already employed, would circle with the bank’s compliance department and ask for an exemption to be granted. State upfront that you are willing to provide the information necessary for regulatory compliance to be fulfilled.
Even compliance people can be reasonable. You might have to sign additional terms & conditions (just click through, as always … ;-)) and provide them with yearly trading statements from yourbetterother broker, but keep in mind it’s not an unreasonable thing to ask for an exception.
Remember, the bank only wants to (a) Cover Their Ass and (b) optimize (costs) for ensuring compliance imposed onto them by regulators. The simplest way is to demand that employees trade only at the bank.** Now the bank can automate things, much cheaper than asking 112’842 employees to send in their trading journal and have that evaluated by a bunch of humans that you have to pay.
If just a bunch of employees ask for an exception, they may allow for it, as they probably already have a few edge cases where things need to be checked manually.
Only after being denied an exception, you could try to go to court against your employer, as you were being reasonable, willing to provide them with the data necessary for them to carry out their compliance duties, and they didn’t play along, being unreasonable … but I admit, hauling your employer into court may be a tall order.
Maybe, if they don’t grant you an exception, re-apply and ask whether there’s anyone else with an exception and whether the employer’s course of action is cleared with the Bankingombudsman … you’re an employee, but as a forced customer of UBS you’re also a customer, and you can ask the banking ombudsman questions. They might even have better (and tested) answers than the ones provided here. -
You could of course always … oh, wait, @Helix stated in the OP to not go to the Dark Side, so I’ll refrain from discussing other options …
* Not a lawyer yadda yadda ya.
** Ok, it’s a nice side benefit for the bank that this boss move generates additional fees, minted of the bank’s own employees, but I would stipulate that’s not their main goal.
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This whole discussion is rather pointless. Either you accept your contract or you don’t.
Why work for UBS in the first place if you don’t agree with their terms?
This is not slavery, you are free to work for who you want.
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Thanks for your heroic participation in the pointless discussion, then …
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Maybe you could just simply ask them to compensate the difference in brokerage costs in the salary and negotiate for a few 100s more per year…
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I totally agree 
While I agree that it sucks that UBS is forcing you to use their own accounts/products with much higher fees, look at the bright side. Their pension fund is giving you 6-9%/year interest currently. I think that’s outweighing the downsides of investing with UBS.
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6-9% interest in pension fund?
Wow.
If I work there I should just do voluntary buy ins and forget about everything else. Although I think this seems very high.
Maybe the employees can also submit a complain that it’s not same as market average and should be reduced to 1% - 2% because obviously this extra return is driven by higher cost product offering to rest of the world.
Just kidding
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UBS pension fund interest:
2021: 9.5%
2022: 7.0%
2023: 9.0%
2024-2026: 6-9% expected
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Bloody hell indeed, who wants the stock bullshit when you get this by your employer?
Risk free and no taxes on top 
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So why you’re all whining like…because you can’t save pennies on “mustachian” “solutions” like IBKR?
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