When will it start applying?
Hello all. Thanks for the informative discussion on this topic- made an account to join in haha
Quick questions to make sure I’m understanding:
- We don’t seem to be aligned on whether these rules are 2020 or 2022, correct?
- IB was allowing purchases of US funds as of January, so it seems to still be possible.
- IF 2020: Infraction of regulations (whenever they do apply) is the broker’s error, not the investor’s? (Of course provided you are honest with the broker about your citizenship/domicile)
Thank you!
Some people have the opinion that the rules don’t force brokers to forbid their clients not to trade those (that’s my opinion).
Note that some major swiss brokers, with likely a fairly large legal department still let people trade VT (postfinance).
AFAIK it’s a regulation for financial actors, as an investor this shouldn’t be your problem (they just want to protect you 
)
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Quite new article from @thepoorswiss:
Are there any news/experiences/infos from you guys? Buying US etf via options is still plan B? 
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Anyone planning buying call options and exercising the right immediately? Does this work on IBKR?
Yes it works. That’s how lots of EU investors buy US-listed ETFs nowadays.
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But 1 option has a contract size of 100? So if I buy a VTI call option, I’ll need to buy 17k? xD
Yes. You can sell 99 directly afterwards if you wish 
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But you have to be fast, you enter some kind of leverage (on margin) that way.
How does this work?
Does it work on any broker?
Still all “could”, “should”, and “think”, so no new significant info as far as I read.
Wonder what was updated in his post on Oct 13.
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Not much was updated indeed. The dates have been updated with the next possible deadline, 2022 and the fact that we can still use these ETFs with Interactive Brokers. This is a question that I get so often that it was worth the update to get more visibility from new readers.
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It looks to me that he didn’t understand that qualified investor status has nothing to do with beeing a professional investor so there is no need to wonder about fiscal implication.
We can see that there is a loophole for the rich . The European Union does not want to hurt the rich that are in the European Union.
It is like saying that it is unfair that when your consumer credit is higher than 80k, the lender doesn’t have to comply with LCC/KKG.
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Btw, UBS recently changed their ToS and explicitly mark US funds (e.g. VT). That said I don’t trade with UBS so couldn’t check if they merely display a disclaimer that you shouldn’t trade it/it’s not solicitation, or if they also prevent trading.
Maybe someone trading with UBS could let us know?
Edit: I think the new ToS says
These collective investment schemes are expressly excluded from being offered in and from Switzerland and/or to nonqualified investors.
But I don’t know if they allow reverse solicitation.
What exactly is the difference between the requirement for the KID for european investors and for Swiss investors. In the blogpost of thepoorswiss, it sais that the KID needs to be available in every language of the member states of the EU. Is this correct?
I found that the Swiss KID needs to be in one of the four national languages or English, so it may be much easier to comply for smaller fund providers. Do you think it is realistic, that at least one fund provider that offers cheap US funds will comply and provide a KID document?
No, it’s unlikely (why would they care when they already have UCITS ETFs for the European market?). It’s more likely they’d be allowed to market it based on US prospectus.
(And even more likely that since 1) reverse solicitation is allowed 2) change in existing positions are allowed, brokers targeting more experienced people will just let people continue trading them anyway)
Who is “they”? Does every company that offers competitive US funds, offer IE based funds?
It is enough if one company complies with a relatively cheap offering. I can’t imagine that it is that expensive to produce a KID in English.
They = the major providers (ishares, vanguard, etc.).
I just don’t see what the incentive is for them, Swiss market is small comparatively (and the institutional traders are not restricted and can still access the ETFs).
(Plus they’d make more money if people switch to the UCITS version :))
Yes, but there are other companies that don’t offer IE based funds. They don’t have an incentive to not publish a KID.
By the way I think the deadline for the prospectus obligation was Dec 1st 2020.
Prospectus Review | regservices.ch (one of the company that take care of that) mentions:
Art. 109 FinSO provides that a prospectus for securities offered to the public in Switzerland or admitted to trading on a trading venue must be published no later than six months after the authorisation of a Prospectus Review Office by FINMA, i.e. from 1 December 2020.
Edit: Seems like UBS stopped allowing people to trade US ETFs, when I check VTI in my account I get:
Ce produit est proposé uniquement en Suisse, ainsi qu’aux investisseurs domiciliés en Suisse, en possession du statut d’investisseur qualifié au sens de la Loi suisse sur les placements collectifs (LPCC). Il peut faire l’objet de restrictions ult.