Hello Mustachians,
What are some of the investment vehicles available for parking cash for a home purchase downpayment? In the US the recommended solution is a money market fund. I am wondering if there is an equivalent in CH. Currently we are using a UBS savings account for this purpose. Ideally we would prefer to have a better return than 0.00 % offered now
If you’re getting 0%, that’s a great deal, that’s quite a lot above the short term interest rate set by the central bank (-0.75%).
(the bank is actually losing quite a bit with letting you get away with 0%).
Edit: maybe keep the money in the current account tho, given the interests rate are similar but there are no notification deadline for withdrawal.
A savings account is probably the most liquid you can have, where you still get a minimal amount of interest. Most banks have a threshold for withdrawing (above a certain amount you have to wait several months to get your money) - so you want to make sure to stay below this amount. Thus, just distribute the money over several accounts.
What about 3a? You cannot put too much in it but you would at least get >0%
We are already maxing out 3A, my sole objective with 3A fund is to use it for home purchase downpayment
Thank your for your input, I was not aware of this waiting period for withdrawals from Savings Account. In fact for UBS the limit is " CHF 50,000 per calendar year, three-month notice period for higher amounts". I will investigate savings account options at other banks as well.
Coop deposits are also nice. You still have some waiting time though.
This is all correct. Please just note that a “Depositenkasse” is not a bank. When Swissair went belly-up, clients of their depositenkasse lost their money.
You get here around 0.75%, with 6 months of notice. Not a bank either. As their loans are fully secured by their real estate assets, the risk is limited imho. They pay you out of the difference to the mortgage that they can thus reduce.
I’d trust Coop more than this Kraftwerk1. Especially because of their name 
Einlagensicherung is 100k per bank anyway, so you definitely want multiple banks.
Money markets pay negative rates in CHF. 0% is better than negative, so be happy you’re getting that.
lol no. Fractional reserve banking - look it up. They only have to deposit a small part of the money at SNB at negative rate. The rest of course they are free to loan out and there’s plenty of people who will pay them north of 1% for example for mortgages. The difference in rates is their profits, and that’s essentially how a classical bank makes money.
Some (but not all) Kantonalbanks have unlimited cantonal guarantee on top of these 100k
Maybe saving with some Swiss REIT like the “SXI Real Estate Index” might work? Unfortunately the TER is very high.
See: https://www.payoff.ch/news/post/musterportfolio-reits-schweiz?hl=de
Some (but not all) Kantonalbanks have unlimited cantonal guarantee on top of these 100k
It seems ZKB is good option and it is AAA rated by credit rating agencies.