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

Investing / Brokers
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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.

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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.

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Why? I mean having different options is always great, but if I’m buying my US ETFs on IB at the moment, there’s no reason to consider other brokers the mo, right?

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If you’ve already got an IB account, there’s no reason to look around right now, agreed.

I’m not going to open one, though, if I have to go through the pain of finding another solution next year.

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What makes you think IB would drop them, but those alternative providers wouldn’t?

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This is actually a bit embarrassing, but I remember someone on this forum quoting a reply from IB customer support saying that the rule will also be enforced for Swiss clients.

For the life of me, I can’t find that post anymore.

  • If an EU based broker is already offering it now, I expect that to work for longer.
  • If the broker is outside EEA/EU, I expect it to not be be a problem.
  • If the broker is US based, I don’t expect it to be a problem.
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Are you sure you are buying real ETF, and not a CFD on it?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Etoro/comments/i453xq/are_all_etf_trades_cfds/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Etoro/comments/i9kw32/etoro_and_us_etfs/

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Does not apply to me. Perhaps because I am not an EU resident.

I am buying the underlying asset:

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Do you have an account already? Did you try to ask to transfer them out to another broker? That would be a reliability test to me.

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The poor Swiss made a comparison between Degiro / eToro a while ago. It seems eToro is very expensive in terms of deposit FX conversion if your currency is not USD

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Ok, that proves my Effective Forum Hypothesis.

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The law is swiss, not US.

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Yes I do, opened it a few months ago. Also got some dividend payments.

It’s not possible, and I’ve never cared about that.
I’d also imagine it being hard because you can buy fractional shares.

Source: https://www.etoro.com/customer-service/help/1484888112/can-i-use-the-automated-customer-account-transfer-service-acats/

I charge my eToro from my Revolut account in USD. I don’t pay any conversion fees.

Don’t get me wrong, eToro is far from the ideal broker. The main benefit for me is that

  1. I get to buy VT more or less for free.
  2. I get to play around with crypto a bit cheaper than on Revolut.

Still, eToro is very limited when it comes to the products you can buy there. It’s around 250 ETFs and 200 shares. The social trading stuff is crap and they focus on hyped shares and leveraged ETFs.

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Gotta eat my words


I got an email from eToro yesterday saying that all ETFs I buy will be CFD from May 31st.

Not sure I am going to keep the account. Might as well buy from Yuh.

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Is there any news if VT will still be available on IB from January 1st?

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There is no news, we still expect to be able to keep them.

Another broker should not change anything normally. The regulations will apply to Swiss investors. There could be a difference between a foreign broker and a Swiss broker, but there should be no difference between a UK broker or a US broker.

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They still follow whatever regulations usually (and the international accounts are UK based iirc).

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Not sure if that was settled already but in case there was still some doubts: I’ve received a mail from the Banque Cantonal Vaudoise (for my TradeDirect account) today informing me that I’m classified as a Private Client and that the services they’re providing to me are Execution Only, so I guess swiss brokers are taking the required steps to comply with regulations and allow swiss residents to still access US ETFs.

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