Swiss brokers [2023]

I said it before and I will say it again: I wouldn’t trust a bank with this kind of logo.

Hahaha

I was with their Head of Legal during my CAS in digital finance law, quite an intereting person and a lot of work since their creation.

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Ahaha, good one :rofl: The first idea in mind which came to me by seeing this logo: a plumber company logo :wink:

On a more serious note, this company is too new/small for my risk appetite. Let’s re-assess if they are still around in 3 years time…

Yuh as broker…any feedback?

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Did you try the forum’s search options ?

Never used it in this quality.

I have not yet used it as broker but I am considering doing so.

Good points:

  • No custody fees (subject to change, but so far nothing).
  • They provide for free the eTax form for swiss tax declaration. (Swissquote/PF ask for 50 or 100chf per position).
  • The 0.5% fee is a lot, but fine for small constant purchase, so compatible with some dollar-cost averaging + accumulation plan.
  • When opening the account you get a 50chf trading credit.
  • It’s a swiss bank (vs IB, Degiro, etc.).

Pain points:

  • The 0.5% fee.
  • The swiss stamp fee (but that’s the price to pay to have a swiss broker).
  • EXTREMELY limited number of ETFss to choose from. (I’d like to buy something like SMMCHA, but cannot find it or something similar).
  • Yuh is an ugly name :slight_smile:

Any thoughts?

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This, combined with the high currency exchange fee (0.95%) and the inability to transfer positions to another broker, makes Yuh unsuitable as broker for global passive investor, in my opinion.

E.g. world equity ETF: The only two choices are IWDC (CHF-hedged, TER 0.55%) or VWRD. For VWRD you’ll pay 2.9% in fees (+ 0.3% stamp duty tax) in total (buy+sell) as it’s traded in USD.

There are also no bond funds available at all.

They do offer iShares Core SPI (TER 0.10%), UBS SXI Real Estate ETF and various Swiss stocks. The 0.5% fee (1.0% for buy+sell) may be acceptable for those. I.e. as a second broker for some Swiss securities, it may be suitable. However, not being able to move a large position to another broker without paying another 0.575% (with stamp duty tax) is still a risk.

Imagine you have large positions there and they decide to increase fees. E.g. a yearly safe custody fee. You’re either forced to pay that or pay a large fee to get away from Yuh. I’d be in favor of regulations to require brokers to allow security transfers with a maximum fee per position.

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Not possible to transfer securities in or out.

And if you cannot transfer positions out, it is a toy, not a broker.

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I was thinking exactly about this. Buying 10kchf (to use up the trading credit) of a swiss ETF and park it there, but it is an overkill, so Swissquote’s capped custody fee may be the the lesser of two evils.

Thanks for your insights. I guess I won’t use Yuh for investing, but just as a current account to keep/spend EUR for free, and transfer SEPA to IBKR (for free, in few hours).

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I was thinking the same but now I’m thinking more and more about PF, where you get trading credits every year instead of just a custody fee.

I’m thinking of using a combination of PF + Yuh with VWRD.

Main VWRD holdings would be at PF, but VWRD distributes dividends as USD at PF. Once I’ve used up trading credits at PF, I’m transfering USD dividends as USD to Yuh and buy VWRD in USD (without currency exchange). As the transactions happening at Yuh are for lower USD amounts, the 0.5% transaction fee for buying/selling is affordable in my view for a Swiss broker (and no currency exchange fee)

All in all, might be a bit of an overoptimization on my end :slight_smile:

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Do you have to open a PF account in USD or the trading account has all currencies? How do you konw if the transfer between PF and Yuh is free?

That will definitely work with SQ + Yuh. A USD transfer from SQ to Yuh account is an internal SQ transfer and is free. Well, it was when I did it in June 21. A USD transfer from PF trading (even though it is SQ inside) to Yuh, if it is possible at all, and definitely from PF USD account, will be a normal bank transfer with a usual fee of around 20 USD.

Would be nice if someone would try a USD transfer from PF to Yuh.

The PF trading account has a USD account by default, but IIRC you will have to open an additional USD payment Account. Opening the account didn’t cost anything extra IIRC.

I’ve already done a payment of 98 USD this January:

PF USD trading account → PF USD payment account → Yuh Account.

The full 98 USD arrived at Yuh without any additional costs attached to it.

When did you do it? Did you get a monthly statement from PF for that month? According to what I remember from some older messages, there might be a surprise waiting for you :sob:

Just checked: My monthly account statement for my USD PF payment account didn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary (like additional fees).

These fees are usually taken from your main, i.e. CHF account, in the end of the month :joy:

Where did you see this?

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I read about this in: Yuh App Experience 2023: Optimise Yuh with these 3 tips!

But you are right, I cannot find this statement on any official source like Yuh app or Yuh website.