Where and how to park 2nd pillar for two months

I’ll be leaving my current employer at the end of October and plan to start something new in January 2023. So, two months of intermediate RE to relax and enjoy autumn and the xmas time.

Question now is, what to do with my 2nd pillar during that time.

  1. Open a vested benefits account at a bank and park it there at 0% interest rate.
    1a. Can I open more than one vested benefits account to stay below the 100kchf depositor protection?
  2. My employer would transfer the money to the “Stiftung Auffangeinrichtung BVG”.
  3. Transfer the money to VIAC of Finpension and invest it.

Personally I would favor option 1. Park the money safely, and then re-enter the system.

What do you think?

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If it’s just for a couple of months, I guess you can just leave it in your current pension fund. Unless you have some advanced strategies, of course.

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They say that I cannot leave it there, they will open account at the “Stiftung Auffangeinrichtung BVG” and put the money there.

And in that case, I’d rather open an account at a bank and keep it there.

EDIT: From what I see I can have two vested benefits accounts at different institutions. Thus, I might rather split the money for safety reasons. Investigations are still ongoing.

why?
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A bit raugh for two months.

I would transfer it to a vested account nor in a Bank or to VIAC. You should look after hidding fees just in case.

At this moment, as I’m still looking into my options, I don’t know anything about the “Stiftung Auffangeinrichtung BVG” – yet.

What do you mean? Neither bank nor VIAC?

Ah sorry, you can ignore the “nor”. I wanted to say: put it in a vested account in a bank or at VIAC (there is also Value Pension).

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They can’t legally do that any earlier than 6 months after termination. Note though that the risk insurance with with your previous pension fund will lapse after only one month.

To answer the original question: leave funds with your current pension fund and instruct them to transfer directly to your new scheme when you start your new job.

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Basically a state instution where usually forgotten 2nd pillar gets transferred to automatically if you forget to state a follow up instution upon job change/emigration. Apparently you can also open a Freizügigkeitskonto with them. Might be cheaper than a bank or Viac for short term

I have to agree. Swiss Life kept my money while I was abroad for my employer (and on contract with a foreign entity) without problem.

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They’re right that leaving it with the old fund isn’t a „choice“. You have to instruct them where to transfer your benefits - and you’ll do so at the earliest opportunity: once the new fund can accept your benefits.

You will lose interest on your capital compared to leaving it with your current fund, since the current fund is obliged to still pay interest after termination.

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Well, yes, this company is a bit special. They pay high salaries but are not always easy to deal with. I’m leaving as part of a huge lay-off that’s going on. Personally I’m really happy about it: I earned well over many years, will get a nice severance payment, can keep my employee shares. And I couldn’t really do anything meaningful on my job anymore.

I’m planning on writing a little intermediate-pre-RE experience report here in the forum when I’m back in the world of employees. :slight_smile:

I’ll look into when exactly they’ll transfer the money to the Auffangstiftung. If it’s only after six months, then cool, I’ll leave the money where it is. Thanks!

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It’s not up to your employer. It’s up to their pension fund, a separate legal entity, and, ultimately, the law.

https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1994/2386_2386_2386/de#art_4

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Just checked the regulation of the pension fund and it says exactly the same. Problem solved.

You, Sir, are a genius!

Thank you!

[this post self-destructed after 30hrs]

Well, thank you, really.

I opened this thread with the intention to collect ideas as I figured out what to do. And found the solution in a matter of hours.

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I have opened a temporary vested benefit account (was with UBS) for three months. It was this time where VIAC has launched their vested benefit option. Once this happened, I transfered the assets from UBS to VIAC and let it grow there.

I did not transfer these assets to the new employer.

But this is not everybodys way to go. If I were you, just park it at a random bank and then transfer everything to the new employer.

Just open one regular vested benefits account in CHF for compulsory benefits (pilar 2a). Interest rates don’t matter for that short term. Investing for that short term is ridiculously risky.

You should make sure there are no fees for opening or closing the account, and no minimum time frames for fee-free account closures.

When you join your new employer’s pension fund and transfer your assets, there is a chance that you will be able to open a new vested benefits solution. This would be the case if your new pension fund is not set up to handle voluntary benefits (pillar 2b, or more likely, 1e assets). In that case, the excess benefits can be trasferred to a vested benefits account, and using an asset management service like Viac or Finpension for that makes a lot of sense since it is long term.

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Congrats for your severance payment Neville.

This blog post from Finpension explains how to split your Pillar 2 which can provide few benefits (less taxes when withdrawing, diversification of providers, etc).
I will drop that one here too.

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It’s legit. All 2a cash goes there if no other instructions are made. Not worth investing it in shares for only 2 months.

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For you non-mandatory vested benefits I would also recommend splitting as described in the previous post.

Depending on what type of pension plan your new employer offers you could only bring in the mandatory part. Strictly speaking this is not allowed, however there is no way the new PK will be able to find out that you still have a Freizügigkeitskonto.

This way you could have your non-mandatory part invested in stocks, which should give you more long therm than the usual 2-3 % you get from a PK in the capital saved there.

Before doing this you should check the pk plan of your new employer. Some risk related things like invalidity payments or payments in case of death could be linked to the capital you have in the pk. Then again there are other PK plans that are independent of capital saved, meaning payments in case invalidity and death are purely based on the yearly salary that is insured by your new employer.

If your new employer offers a 1e solution for earnings above 127k a year, you could bring in the mandatory and non-mandatory part of your savings and decide on a strategy that best fits your risk profile for the 1e part of your savings.

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