US-ETFs (VT for instance) not available anymore in Switzerland?

Just to confirm: the whole issue about loosing access to US based ETFs is valid for both European and US based brokers? I have read in two different places that if you use an US based broker no restrictions will apply.

I incidentally contacted Schwab over the weekend:

residents of Switzerland are still not eligible to purchase US ETFs or ETNs. Please check back in the future for any changes.

Not sure how the setup currently works, but at least a few years ago Swiss resident opened accounts through their U.K. entity, if I remember correctly.

They’ve gotten the communication wrong before though.

My (afaik) UK account does not seem to be restricted (didn’t place the trade, but I could go to the review your trade screen with no warnings).

In any case, maybe we should wait and see what and if anything happens :slight_smile:
Seems like at least for the banks/brokers who want to restrict things, the restriction is already done (e.g. UBS).

well as far as I understand the date is 2022, so for now it’s it’s normal that it is still working. But again I have to read again all this post and other online because I am still lost.

Some explanation why no US-domiciled ETFs are UCITS compliant:

PRIISP regulated securities are required to give a future return and risk estimate. The SEC strongly discourages funds to make prediction about the future return of the fund. This means US-domiciled etfs can’t produce a KID because that would mean that they need to make a prediction about the future return of their products.

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If Swiss-based Yuh are offering VT and SPY as two of their (only!) five available ETFs, U.S.-domiciled can obviously offered to customers in Switzerland.

(Why?) would they offer the two with their very recent launch - if they’ll be gone in 2022?

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I asked them last week about W8-BEN and haven’t received an answer yet, so I’m not sure they know what they are doing.

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FWIW my (probably limited) understanding of the law is that they’re definitely on the wrong side of it. It looks like they’re actively promoting those ETFs and not being able to provide a KIID is a big no-no.

At least IB or swissquote can claim it’s a reverse solicitation (people know about VT and seeked it out with no marketing).

I asked Swissquote and they said they don’t know any reason, why US-ETFs should be removed by 2022.

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:laughing: what, doesn’t Swissquote read this forum!? :thinking::wink:

Do they? I mean, I’m not see it on Yuh. Though you could argue them offering just 5 ETFs they almost “force” equity investors to buy it :wink:

Do they really ““forced”” them to buy it ? I mean, from what we know about Yuh is that this app seems to target young people or fintech fan who probably don’t know a lot of things about investment and will probably use the app to have a free account and play with cryptocurrencies, or with some Apple, Amazon equity, just for “the fun to have an Apple share” and the “fun to have 0.000002323234 Bitcoin”.

Well, if you use the app to invest in broadly diversified equity, they almost do.

I mean, they’re offering only 111 stocks and 5 ETFs and some (quite a few) trend, hype and meme investments (crypto, themes).

VT is literally their only World equity fund.

I agree with you in this point. The thing is that they do not really promote one of their stocks or ETFs or trand, hype, meme investment. At the end what’s matter is the decision of the investor who chose by himself a product without asking an advice, so it is still an execution only trade.

In Switzerland, the frontier between Execution only, Advisory Management and Asset Management are really important and this why US-ETF will still be available because broker will never advice to invest in those products, they can’t do it. Of course, if someone want to claim that Swissquote/Postfinance/Yuh are promothing US-ETF and want to shut down this “promotion” he or she can go to Finma or a court in order to stop all swiss broker to give an access to US-ETF :slight_smile: And the court will interprete the law and what was the real mean of the law. Until then, I think we are safe for 3-5 more years (after 2022).

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Do you know why UBS decided that their retail product (“Quotes”) was putting them outside of the execution only safe harbor?

The communication when they removed US ETFs made it clear they thought it couldn’t be considered execution only.

Maybe UBS promote those US ETFs to some of their client in the past or maybe they just find an opportunity to promote their homemade ETF instead of US one which are more competitive? I find it strange that they removed US ETFs, do you have their communication about it? I will be interested to know their interpretation about it.

See US-ETFs (VT for instance) not available anymore in Switzerland? - #196 by nabalzbhf

You can also check the ToS iirc there were more details there as well.

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Probably more the fact that UBS is much more visible to the US being international … and already having supported the US treasury indirectly through fines :rofl:

I wouldn’t be surprised that PF and Swissquote will try to fly below the radar and then use the interpretation of promotion IF challenged.

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Yes they do that in many areas, it is super annoying.

I think it’s time to consider other brokers than IB for US ETFs. Or someone should make a tutorial on how to buy them through options.

I’ve read on other forums about Tastyworks.
And apparently some UK or Scandinavian brokers also offer US ETFs. It would be good to compile a list of alternative providers.

I’ll go first:
If you’re only interested in VT, you can buy it for free on eToro. You can’t buy any ETF you want there, but many Vanguard ones are there.