Yes, this is my understanding. IBKR has a direct account at the main depository DTCC. Assets are held there directly without the involvement of any banks. No intermediaries.
On the other hand, and not related to the brokerage issue, the fund manager (vanguard) doesn’t hold assets itself and uses a custodian. So the banks are involved, but not on the side of IBKR.
The same applies to UCITS, IBKR has direct accounts at national depots like Clearstream. Certainly in Germany.
Did we just made a full circle and come to the conclusion that IB is actually the safest broker?
More fuel for your thoughts:
This overview classifies brokers into different categories:
IB is “tier 1 pure broker”. Swissquote as well, so it doesn’t give me an extra confidence. But that’s not the point. What I find noteworthy is:
1.2 Direct Brokers within a Banking Group
Brokers in this category have a direct-to-consumer (minimal traditional infrastructure) business model, often a modern and mobile-friendly approach to clients. They are typically part of banking groups of significant importance.
Examples include HelloBank (BNP Paribas), Fortuneo (Arkéa), Boursobank (Société Générale), Bolero (KBC Bank) or Comdirect (Commerzbank).
I can imagine Comdirect as a secondary or main broker no problem. It’s not dirt cheap, but still the fees are very low.
ETF shares traded in CHF are custodied by SIX? Or SIX is only a secondary custodian? Or what?
Custody situation could be an argument for mutual funds (indexed, of course) vs. ETFs. Now, mutual funds available to retail investors in Switzerland are just a rip off. But you can subscribe retail classes of Swiss indexed mutual funds e.g. at Swissquote. These funds still suck.
If you have 500+ k in taxable account, there are more options. Both Vanguard and Blackrock give access to their mutual funds for this level of investment.
I also looked through e.g. Luxembourg SICAVs at some point, but have not found anything interesting.
In the past, after reading all the standard US blogs, I tried looking to see if it’s possible to directly invest with Vanguard, but I came to the conclusion that it’s not possible because on this website it only mentions ETFs, or mutual funds via a third party bank https://www.ch.vanguard/en/private-investor/how-to-buy
By reading and partipating to this forum, you confirm you have read and agree with the disclaimer presented on http://www.mustachianpost.com/
En lisant et participant à ce forum, tu confirmes avoir lu et être d'accord avec l'avis de dégagement de responsabilité présenté sur http://www.mustachianpost.com/fr/
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.