Saxo Bank recently lowered their fees significantly: https://www.home.saxo/en-ch/campaigns/invest-for-less
Seems to be a very attractive option now if you want a Swiss broker. 0.25% currency conversion fee, 120 Fr./year max. custody fee, 0.03% - 0.08% stocks commission, 8 Fr. flat fee for mutual funds.
And they also have a pretty high interest rate on CHF (1% - 1.26% for 100k) with esisuisse protection (up to 100k).
They have improved a lot the past few years.
The merge with Binck has been hectic especially on dividend on foreign stocks and French taxation.
I didn’t like the fact it was mostly adressed for trading profile with for example shortcut to close a position but no button to ease DCA.
UI is now better for long term investor.
I experienced they managed to stabilise the merge and now they start to compete with their new fees.
My mum had an account with Binck which we decided to close (and transfer securities to another broker)… it took ages… but that was in Italy
Hope such procedures have improved by now, there were a lot of complaints also on forums by the time
They are interesting as an alternative to Interactive Brokers.
I’ve tested their demo platform regarding to take a look of their trading fees:
They are competitive in my opinion. Despite the fact of the 0.25% currency conversion rate and the deposit fee of 10 CHF/m.
Things are moving in Switzerland, maybe the next one to drop his fees could be Swissquote?
USD 4 for each trading is still ca. 13x more than IB. While paying one year in fees at Saxo, I could trade for free for 13 years with IB.
Moreover, USD 120 p.a. account fees will add up. Obviously, we all have a solid salary but when I am optimizen, I want to do it correctly.
Lastly, it seems that there is a fee of 0.12% p.a. of your securities volume:
“Für Kunden mit Aktien, ETFs/ETCs oder Anleihepositionen fällt eine Depotgebühr von 0,12% p. a. an, wobei die monatliche Mindestgebühr 5,00 CHF beträgt.”
Margin interest rate with Saxo is as well pretty high (just checked USD).
Don’t want to bash it, since Saxo is moving into the right direction, which is very nice.
The 0.12% p.a. without a cap and with a minimum of CHF 5 a month is the old custody fee, as far as I can tell. The new one doesn’t have a minimum and is capped at CHF 10 per month (but is 0.22% p.a. for smaller portfolios). It seems the ETF page hasn’t been updated yet. The stocks page says
Für Aktien- oder ETF-Positionen wird eine Depotgebühr erhoben, die sich nach Ihrer Kontostufe und dem Wert Ihres Wertpapierportfolios richtet. Die Depotgebühr wird täglich auf der Grundlage der Positionswerte am Tagesende berechnet und monatlich in Rechnung gestellt, zuzüglich 8,1 % Mehrwertsteuer. Es wird keine monatliche Mindestdepotgebühr erhoben. Die maximale Gebühr beträgt CHF 10 pro Monat.
Insofar as banks with a Swiss banking license go, Saxo is now one of the most affordable for US stocks. Of course, there are foreign brokers that are cheaper. On the whole though, I’m amazed with how competitive the Swiss stock brokerage market has become. But even if Swiss banks were to charge zero fees, they would still be at a disadvantage over foreign banks because of the curious Swiss stamp duty system.
The currency conversion fee of 0.25% still makes it too expensive for any bigger portfolio. Especially knowing that it costs them practically nothing do to the conversion…
I must say, the new fee structure makes Saxo quite interesting. I opened an account with them today: after all taxes, conversions, fees I would be paying ~200.- CHF/year more than I am currently paying with IBKR.
I have a lot of confidence in IBKR, however having a swiss broker under swiss law is somehow quite appealing.
Of course.
But for a swiss alternative, they are interesting against Swissquote and the other swiss broker. If you want a Swiss broker/bank, Saxo seems to be the less expensive despite some fees like their custody fees and their conversion rate that is still really high but far better than Swissquote (0.95%).
I have updated my sheet with the comparison of different brokers
2k investment per month and 4% return
IMO, there is really not much difference between IB and Saxo
One-off costs just don’t add up as much
Amazing how cheap neon is compared to the other Swiss brokers. If only their selection of ETFs were a little wider.
Yeah, up to ~2.5k per investment they are great.
Personally I like their selection of ETFs. What’s missing in your opinion?
I suppose that as Saxo Bank is originally a Danish bank, they prefer to follow EU recommendations and not differentiate treatment with Switzerland for the sake of simplicity (like DeGiro?).
However, when I think about the possibility of having a Swiss broker, I would be more inclined towards IE based ETFs rather than US based ETFs and especially accumulative ETFs that can be bought in CHF to avoid the 0.25% conversion rate and having to convert dividends into CHF to reinvest them.
For example, this ETF: FTSE All-World UCITS ETF Acc | Trading information
I have definitely to check neon again, especially for VT(I).
So far no US-ETFs available:
neon_ETFs_Stocks_2024_Jan.xlsx)
I use saxo as an alternative broker for euros transaction but not us trades.
You could also create multiple account in various currencies to avoid converting dividends or trades in foreign currencies.
For Swiss Gov’t bond funds, they only offer the medium-term one by iShares, I’d like to see the short- and long-term variants as well.
Also, I’d like to see the SLI ETF by UBS as well.
Not only that, the 0 custody fees “pay” for bigger investments as well.
the stamp tax always baffled me. Why inconvenience your own local banks? That just doesnt make sense and need to be abolished. Until then I will literall ynever use a swiss broker.
Although Saxo is definitely not bad. Can you trade swiss mutual funds with them, like Swisscanto ones??
e: Well just saw that you cant trade US funs aaaand it’s terrible again… Go damn stupid EU regulations.
