I got confused about all the VTs and VWCE and VWRL… but I guess it doesn’t matter where I get it right? So, US?
OK I need to come back here.
In the past 6 months, the missus could not make any transactions in time on IB, I need a simpler broker.
All she needs to do is the following:
- log in to IB
- convert CHF to USD
- buy VT for a dollar amount.
This seems to be too complicated, too scary, too unknown, or the combination of the all three plus “here, please do it yourself with my phone”.
So I’m looking for a simpler, if more expensive alternative that does this on a “Sparplan” or any other regular vehicle with reasonable costs. The target allocation is about 2k CHF a month into VT, 12x a year, maybe larger lump sums if we start sliding into a recession.
She’s got a PF account, but buying 2k CHF for 40-50CHF a pop doesn’t seem a hell of a good business. TrueWealth? Yuh? One of the neobanks? Ideally it would be a fire-and-forget thing, but alas, IB doesn’t seem to be able to do this for her.
Any tips much appreciated.
I totally get you. I „forced“ my GF into Viac (Global 100) and IBKR (VT).
While Viac is pretty easy for her, IBKR even on the phone is just too complicated. I constantly need to do her monthly buys on her phone.
But is there really a cost-efficient alternative?
Why did you open an IB account for her if you are married? Did you have a specific wedding contract?
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Same for me. We each manage our savings.
Once a year, we create a new Global 100 strategy account (under my instructions) for Viac.
Setting up the monthly money transfer is almost too much.
I cannot foresee to instruct her to do the same with IB and buy manually VT…
We manage our retirement investment separately. I find it cleaner if the marriage duration statistics turn out to be true…
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Are you married?
I’m married and I opened a sub account on my portfolio for my wife, she just transfers me the money and I do the trades for her.
She can access the account, see her balance, etc. and that’s enough for her, as she trusts me with our finances.
When you are married everything earned after marriage is anyway split in half in case of a divorce. If you have children, you’re always *** as a man…
we have separate accounts (don’t ask me why, I didn’t think about a joint account at the time) 
Wouldnt a Robo-Advisor, like True Wealth, findependent or Selma, be much easier?
Higher annual fee for sure, but you can just install a standing order (Dauerauftrag) to your account and they invest it for you based on your investment strategy.
I’m looking for options, so I’ll be looking into Selma then.
TW costs 0.5% on top, which is not terrible, but not great either.
Generally I want to avoid the Swiss stamp duty as a priority. 
Why? I can understand it having noticeable consequences for frequent traders but if your wife is finding the complexity of buying VT at IB to be greater than her willingness to deal with it, I can’t imagine her applying a strategy more complex than buying and holding (even rebalancing could be put into question).
A two times 0.075% or 0.15% fee shouldn’t move the needle for long term holding when compared to other factors (like exchange and brokerage fees). Or am I completely misleaded here?
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Buying VT on PostFinance eTrader costs about 40CHF every time. Even if you buy 2000CHF. That’s a 2% loss to start with, or yearly 500CHF. For the services rendered, I find that way too high.
Yes, but the stamp duty part of that, for buying VT on a swiss exchange, is 3 CHF (for 2000 CHF). I would find optimizing the 37 other CHF a higher priority than not paying the 3 CHF. By that, I mean, the Stamp duty is part of the fees and the fees, as a whole, should be optimized. I don’t understand singling it out and giving it somewhat of a higher importance than the rest.
Hmm… I need to see to that. Maybe it’s just the PF default fees and not the stamp duty that is so high.
I’ve taken a look at Selma, looks great, but it’s 1% a year, plus minus (0.68% mgmt fee + 0.22% ETF fees + CH stamp duty). I might be tempted, though.
I suggest to either open a joint IB account or take her account under your management or open a new account in her name under your management. Bank transfers to IB can be automated on both sides (IB and the bank), and you would do the rest.
Otherwise flatex could be an option.
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She can use YUH if the rest is too complicated for her. Not ideal but you need to make sacrifices if convenience is first priority.
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Germany has quite a few online brokers that offer cheap (and automated) ETF savings plans. This can easily be automated.
The currency conversion however will likely either cost 1% or a bit more (setting up a standing order for bank transfer to a EUR account) or have to be done manually (e.g. exchangemarket, Wise, etc. for easy FX at 0.5% or less).
this is pretty much killing all the convenience 
Check out Passiv before giving up on IB
You might want to scan this thread too
Otherwise bite the bullet and pay for a service such as the ones that others suggested
At findependent you are looking at 0.44% (custody fee) + 0.22% (TER for FTSE All-World) plus stamp duty of 0.15% per transaction.
According to one of their YT-videos, they will also introduce fee scales this year (like Selma), so the higher the invested assets, the lower the custody fee.
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