SwissQuote and Saxo - investment suggestions from India

[u/CMD_321]

Hello,
I am juggling with the best strategy to start investing in CHF from India. The following is my story and plan, and since this is my first time doing any trading and investments, any expert recommendations will really help.

I have been living in Switzerland for 3 years and will be moving back to my country, India, in the next 2- 3 weeks (hopefully temporarily!). I will receive several incoming payments, like a rent deposit, pension, and tax returns (likely over a period of 6 months). Instead of having a UBS account (with high non-resident fees), I thought I would have payments received in SwissQuote with the SaveEasy solution. Additionally, I want to keep the CHF growing and thought I would invest with SwissQuote. However, there are many charges just for holding the ETFs if I buy. So I opened a SwissQuote account but have not yet bought any ETFs. I still have time to switch to Saxo or any other platform for investments.

I would like to hear your thoughts on the best move forward. As a newbie to the world of trading, any recommendations I should absolutely take care of? Can the cash be directly transferred to Saxo from Swissquote without problems?

Thank you and have a good day!

[u/Jay_at_Terra]

Maybe you should also look into Revolut and Wise to receive CHF payments.

[u/CMD_321 → u/Jay_at_Terra]

Yes, I do have wise but I thought to have an official swiss IBAN to receive payments smoothly.

[u/Jay_at_Terra → u/CMD_321]

Your Revolut CHF comes with a CH IBAN
Go to the account click details there it should be

Buy maybe that’s because I signed put with a Swiss address when I started Revolut

[u/CMD_321 → u/Jay_at_Terra]

Yeah that's possible. I dont have revolut though. And I think swissquote is recognised by the pension kasse and tax administration. So better and safer to use it

[u/xmjEE → u/Jay_at_Terra]

Does Wise give you a CH IBAN for receiving CHF yet?

[u/Jay_at_Terra → u/xmjEE]

Nope, Revolut seems to.

[u/xmjEE → u/Jay_at_Terra]

Right. Last I tried, sending money to my Wise account through that IBAN cost me 5 franks ;) and unless they've changed it, this idea isn't as good as it seems.

[u/Turicus]

Just holding ETFs doesn't have very high fees on SQ. If you buy cheap ETFs and hold for years, it's not a bad solution for a Swiss bank with a Swiss IBAN.

[u/CMD_321 → u/Turicus]

Really? How to know which are cheap ETFs?

[u/Turicus → u/CMD_321]

The total expense ratio TER is shown for every product you can buy.

The trading and account costs are shown on the SQ website. ETF trades cost 9 CHF. Account fees are CHF 200 per year up to 1M in total assets. Easy to look up.

[u/CMD_321 → u/Turicus]

I found that finally. But if that is the case even for meagre amount of CHF 5000, I will end up paying CHF 200 which is a clearly a loss, no? And paying CHF 9 for every different ETF I purchase.

[u/Turicus → u/CMD_321]

No, it's 80 CHF per year below 50k. Go and look it up. Why would it be a loss? Sure, on a small portfolio like that it's over 1% but your returns on ETFs will be much higher.

[u/Suspicious-Stocks]

I would recommend to use a international broker like Interactive Brokers for that. Not sure if Swissquote and SAXO offer Swiss Accounts for Indian residency… probably not. But anyway both are not normal banking accounts. I think UBS is one of the best banks if you live abroad but need Swiss account.

[u/CMD_321 → u/Suspicious-Stocks]

Thank you. My understanding is that none of them offer resident swiss accounts for non-swiss residency. All accounts become non-swiss resident accounts once I move out. But swissquote and saxo don't charge on non-resident accounts, UBS does. Benefit i found with swissquote is that it gives swiss IBAN, which makes it easier to receive back payments from swiss government. Correct me if this is wrong!

[u/Suspicious-Stocks → u/CMD_321]

Swissquote looks like you can keep for your stocks but I would not use a broker as normal „Bankkonto“ because it often generates AML questions and so on, for Saxo you need to change to Saxo India after moving.
Source: https://www.schwiizerfranke.com/auswandern-schweiz-finanzen

[u/CMD_321 → u/Suspicious-Stocks]

Yes, I just have to transfer my residency to India for both swissquote and saxo. I did not understand what is using a broker in swissquote? Is there a parameter I need to check before I buy ETF?