Dear community,
I recently created a third pillar at VIAC and I wonder what happens if VIAC (resp. WIR bank) goes to bankruptcy ? What are the consequences ont the invested amount of money, and how can we recover it ?
Thanks a lot for your help,
Have a great day.
The money you invested is segregated from the other assets of the bank. You won’t lose anything if they go bankrupt. It will take some time (some weeks/months depends on the case) to move the assets to a different bank and this will normally be done by a special separate entity. You as an investor won’t have to do anything apart from at one point provide the bank details of the new account for a transfer.
To clarify, while the fund investments are segregated (and in custody at UBS/Swisscanto, not WIR), this doesn’t apply to cash. If the WIR bank were to go bankrupt, up to CHF 100k of cash per VIAC 3a client are privileged but they are neither guaranteed (no esisuisse for 3a) nor “Sondervermögen”.
If you invest 99% of your money in funds, you surely are below the CHF 100k threshold and I wouldn’t worry about this at all. If you hold a significant percentage of 3a in cash, especially if it’s more than 100k in total, there is a risk.
Hello again,
First of all, thank you a lot for all your answers. It is really appreciated !
To be precise I invested in the global 100 strategy of SwissCanto (which means 99% of the money is invested in funds). If I understand well, there is no risk to lose the 99% funds part even if some institution (VIAC, WIR, SwissCanto, etc) goes bankrupted or desappears. Am I right ?
Have a great day 
Exactly, there’s no risk due to bankruptcy. The only risk you have is that one of the involved institutions commits serious fraud, but that’s highly unlikely (but not impossible, you’ll never get 100% security) as these are FINMA regulated entities.