Introduction
Through my interest in the matter of investing and the age group me and my peers are in (35-45), the topic of how to invest savings for retirement pops up more and more (and I’m not* initiating these discussions, I swear 
).
The major pain point I’m encountering almost every time is probably also one of the reasons most people choose the bank they’re already with and their respective high-fee, underperforming active fund savings plans: complexity.
Because most people want their investing to be super-easy:
- monthly standing order
- no dividends to deal with
- no manual rebalancing
- no need to convert currency
- a Swiss solution
- eTax document
- bonus: automatic handling of one-off sums (bonus, 13th salary, whatever)
Solutions
Here are the best solutions I’ve found, with various amounts of hand-holding.
For simplicity’s sake I’ve left out stamp tax that would apply to all solutions anyway. I’ve also ignored any sign-up bonuses, limited-time fee reductions or unproven features (i.e. finpension’s reclaiming of WHT).
The «You can set it up by yourself» solution
The easiest solution people can set up in minutes by themselves (without people like us helping them setting it all up) is finpension. The global market-cap weighted strategy is already the default one, so no need to tinker or customize – just start transferring money.
Fees
- 0.47% p.a.
- custody fees: 0.3% (tax-deductible)
- wealth management fees: 0.09% (not tax-deductible)
- TER: 0.08%
- additional stock market fees when buying/selling
Pros
- investing from CHF 1
- good diversification with 80% of the investable market (estimate, as indices EURO STOXX 50, FTSE 100 and S&P 500 are used instead of broader indices)
- sporadic lump-sum investments are handled automatically
- withdrawal plan possible
- eTax document included
Cons
- relatively high fees
- no exposure to Canada, Denmark, Israel, Norway, Sweden**
- 1% stays uninvested as interest-free cash
- unspecified “additional stock market fees”
- no possibility to transfer titles to another broker, you’ll need to sell shares
The «I’ll help you set it up and maintain it, but you could probably do it yourself someday» solution
If you’re fine with helping them set everything up and help them make adjustments every few months or when investing a lump-sum (or alternatively teach them how to do it yourself), I’d recommend neon investment plan with the Invesco FTSE All-World ETF. Adjusting it is pretty easy, so even investing noobs would probably feel confident to do it themselves.
Fees
- 0.15% p.a.
- TER: 0.15%
- 0.5% when selling, or transferring the shares to another broker for CHF 100
Pros
- the lowest fees of all solutions
- investing from < CHF 10
- great diversification with 90% of the investable market
- eTax document included
Cons
- when changing the monthly transferred amount, you also need to adjust the investment plan to the same amount
- sporadic lump-sum investments need to be handled manually by increasing the investment plan amount for one month and then changing it back after
- there’s a buying commission of 0.5% deducted that is then later refunded, so you’ll accrue some additional cash that needs to be manually invested (like with above points)
- high fees for selling or transferring the position to another broker
The «Let’s use a proper broker, but you will probably always need my help» solution
If you’re fine with them probably never being able to do stuff by themselves, i.e. you having to help them, go with Saxo AutoInvest and iShares MSCI ACWI.
Fees
- 0.2% p.a.
- TER: 0.2%
- 0.08% (minimum of CHF 3) when selling
Pros
- investing from < CHF 100
- great diversification with 85% of the investable market
- sporadic lump-sum investments are handled automatically
- eTax document included
Cons
- the most complex/intimidating solution compared to the other ones, being a proper broker
- the position is not part of your normal portfolio, with no possibility to transfer it to another broker, you’ll need to sell the position
The «But I really want a proper Swiss bank» solution
If someone only feels comfortable investing their money directly with a Swiss bank, I’d first explain what the risks and effects are when the companies default. If they still insist, I’d recommend the BLKB investment fund account.
Fees
- 0.57% p.a.
- custody fees: 0.1% (tax-deductible)
- TER: 0.34% (CH) / 0.47% (World ex CH)
- currency conversion fees when buying/selling World ex CH (which is in USD)
Pros
- investing from CHF 50
- sporadic lump-sum investments are handled automatically
- half the stamp tax (because of CH-domiciled funds)
- eTax document included
- (freely selectable CH bias)
Cons
- high TER
- unspecified currency conversion fees
- no exposure to emerging markets
- only sustainable funds available
- (manual rebalancing necessary)
The «But I really want a CH bias» solution
If someone believes it is important to have a share of CH stocks that is significantly higher than market cap, I’d first explain that a CH bias can become a concentration risk (I’d argue 10-20% is fine, 40% is too much).
If they insist, you can modify finpension’s pre-defined strategies to increase exposure to CH, or add a Swiss ETF to a Saxo AutoInvest account. You could also add a Swiss ETF to the neon investment plan, but this will incur a buying comission of 0.5%. And BLKB needs the weight of CH being set manually anway.
Summary
| Features | finpension | neon invest | Saxo | BLKB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fees p.a. | 0.47% | 0.15% | 0.2% | 0.57% |
| % of total market | ~80% | 90% | 85% | 80% |
| Minimum investment (CHF) | 1 | 10 | 100 | 50 |
| Automatic monthly change | ✓ | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Automatic lump-sum | ✓ | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Withdrawal plan | ✓ | — | — | — |
| eTax | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Complexity | Low | Medium-low | High | Low |
(More or less) Honorable mentions
- Yuh: basically the same as neon invest, but it uses Vanguard’s distributing FTSE All-World ETF which has a ~50% higher TER and because it’s distributing, you’ll lose out on ~1% of dividends (which, even though the ETF is bought in CHF, are paid in USD) because of the currency conversion fees. So you’ll lose out on ~0.1% yearly performance. Because they use fractional trading, there’s no leftover money that stays uninvested, but this also means it’s not possible to transfer the position to another broker (so you’d need to sell it for a 0.5% fee). In summary, I see no reason to use it over neon.
- findependent: the default strategies have a way too high CH bias to be considered, but you can set up a custom portfolio. For this, you need to have invested at least CHF 5000 (you could easily start with a default strategy until you reach 5k, as which such a small portfolio a CH bias is acceptable). You can then add the same ETF as with Yuh and end up with a solution with yearly fees of 0.66%. It’s in a weird place between the other solutions: neon requires more manual management, but is over four times cheaper and easier to set up, and Saxo is more complicated to set up, but three times cheaper. Both neon and Saxo are therefore superior solutions IMO.
- Swissquote: their savings plan is just an automation of manual orders, so you pay the usual commission and other fees, which amount to about CHF 12 per order. Add to that CHF 100-200 custody fees per year. Saxo beats them in every way except that Swissquote offers a wider range of titles and fractional shares.
- VIAC Invest: although 0.46% p.a., it’s actually cheaper than finpension as stamp tax is included in that fee (although they might be neck and neck again in the future by finpension’s attempt at reclaiming WHT), but it lacks a market-cap weighted strategy, so you need to create a manual strategy. And as there’s no world ETF, when doing so you need to manually rebalance CH, US, Europe, Pacific and EM. If they had a market-cap strategy, or a way to reduce CH bias by at least half while still maintaining the automatic rebalancing, they would be my absolute favorite and I would recommend them to everybody. Oh well.
Exclusions
Here are the other solutions and the reasons why I didn’t include them above:
| Solution | Reason for exclusion |
|---|---|
| Alpian | No passive strategy |
| Clevercirles | No passive strategy |
| Invoya | No passive strategy |
| Kaspar& | Concentration risk (40% CH stocks) |
| Radicant | No passive strategy |
| Raiffeisen Rio | Intransparent strategy |
| Selma | No passive strategy |
| Swissquote Invest Easy | No passive strategy |
| UBS key4 | Concentration risk (40% CH stocks) |
| Vontobel Volt | Intransparent strategy, not possible to exclude thematic ETFs |
| True Wealth | Active weighing of world regions (not based on market cap) for default strategy, manual rebalancing of regions required for custom strategy |
| ZKB | No passive strategy |
*well, mostly
**Irrelevant? Novo Nordisk might disagree.
And findependent allows you to be completely free in your investment decision, no matter what you answer during onboarding?