[YaPasPhoto]

Thank you for your clarifications, Jérôme and Mystik.

That being said, I don't like the GUI changes that happened a few months ago at PostFinance. It looks like it was designed for a smartphone, but it's really not pleasant to use on a PC. The GUI of Migros Bank or Raiffeisen is something else.

The cost of keeping a PostFinance account (formerly 36.- / year) has jumped to 60.- / year, which is significantly more expensive than with several competitors. Unless, of course, you deposit the amount you want. I don't call that freedom.

Correction regarding Stratéo: I wrote that custody fees are a minimum of 15 CHF and capped at 35 CHF. This is per quarter. So between 60 CHF and 140 CHF per year.
It becomes much less interesting, unless you have a deep pocket.
I do, however, like the way their site presents information, although I haven't tested their platform.

@Mystik : You indicate that you have an account on DKB.de.
Concretely, how does it work if you are a resident of Switzerland, particularly from the point of view of the tax return? Do they send a bank statement or do you have to print a bank statement yourself? Do you have to convert the various bank charges into CHF for the tax return and is this not too laborious? Do these foreign platforms, I am also thinking of Binck (.fr or .be), accept Swiss customers domiciled in Switzerland?

[YaPasPhoto]

Thank you for your feedback.

It is true that in terms of rates, PostFinance seems quite interesting for the occasional investor. On the other hand, transfers are only free to a PostFinance account, which I find unpleasant. If we are only interested in the etrading functionality at PostFinance and the CCP is left with a deposit of less than CHF 7,500, then we must add CHF 60/year in fees for maintaining this account.

Strateo Geneva seems really competitive when it comes to brokerage rates:
https://www.strateo.ch/fr/prices

On the other hand, if there is no trading activity during a semester, there is a tax of 25 CHF.
This therefore comes to 50 CHF / year if you let your wallet sleep.

Custody fees are a minimum of CHF 15 and capped at CHF 35.

Transfers to an account in Switzerland are certainly charged, but at a price of 2 CHF / EUR / GBP / USD. This remains reasonable.

The aspect that seems least attractive to me is the "Other services" section, with in particular tax declarations at 50 CHF and certificates on request at 75 CHF.
Does this mean that no purchase/sale slip is sent by default?
Is there any functionality to print transactions yourself?
Do you have to pay CHF 75 for a year-end portfolio statement and do you have to pay multiple times if the portfolio contains multiple currencies?

Feedback on Stratéo would be welcome. Thank you.

On the security side, Stratéo's "tier 1 ratio" seems lower than CornerTrader's (but note that the last ratio published for CornerTrader dates back to 2013). I was unable to find the tier 1 ratio for Banque Migros.

NB: For businesses, Stratéo applies additional account maintenance fees.

@Mystik: For buying shares abroad, I prefer to go through a platform linked to a Swiss bank, even if it is more expensive. It seems simpler to me to avoid any tax complications and also for reasons of security of the securities portfolio.

[YaPasPhoto]

Hello Jerome,
Hello everyone,

I read with interest the whole thread and especially the messages from dom67 relating to CornèrTrader.ch.

Is there any user here who has experienced CornèrTrader for a stock portfolio?

At first glance, CornèrTrader seems attractive according to the comparison established by MoneyLand and the display of transaction fees found at the bottom of this page.
https://www.cornertrader.ch/fr/accounts/commissions/

User dom67 was also able to obtain additional information which was rather reassuring, but which unfortunately does not appear on the CornèrTrader website.

But be careful, not everything seems rosy.

The points that seem interesting to me about CornèrTrader:

1) This service is offered by a real bank in Switzerland, Cornèr Bank.

2) Brokerage fees as a percentage and not as a flat rate, which is interesting for buying or selling small volumes and therefore increases the liquidity of the deposit.

3) No fees for inactivity, which seems like the least I can do, but unfortunately is not the case everywhere.

4) There are indeed fees for converting to cash, as well as fees for closing an account, but these seem reasonable to me for now.

5) I have the impression that Cornèr Bank "wants" to strengthen its presence in this trading activity, which leads me to believe that its rates could remain attractive as long as it seeks to increase its market share in this activity.

6) There is apparently no deposit fee, but this information seems to be missing from their site.

The gray areas and the minuses:

1) The TradersCard seems to be the only way to withdraw funds; the website seems to be completely silent about the fees for withdrawing cash from ATMs using the said VISA card. Since the credit/debit card business seems to be another strategic pillar of Cornèr Bank, one can imagine that the bank can easily make its customers captive to its trading platform. All it needs is a high fee for card withdrawals.
I guess that's the kind of nasty surprise you can find out about after the fact...

2) The CornèrCard is payable from the second year. (40.- Frs/year)
Yes, you shouldn't dream; see the little asterisk on this page:
https://www.cornertrader.ch/fr/accounts/account-comparison/index.html
I guess the card is imposed with the account, but it's not clear.

3) As another way to transfer money from your CornèrTrader account, bank transfer is also offered, but this seems a priori quite folkloric when reading the CornèrTrader FAQ: "(…) You can also send us an e-mail or contact your account manager who will take care of transferring your money as soon as possible.". It may work very well, but let's say that a priori the fact that they offer e-mail as a contact method really freaks me out. As for the account manager, you have to have a lot of trust to be sure to be able to reach him when the time comes, and if possible in a way other than by e-mail.

4) It is not mentioned whether one can "back" one's CornèrTrader account with a bank account (from Cornèr Bank, so that the amount of shares resold would fall directly into the current/private/savings account. (cf. as at Migros Bank for example) A priori, I would say no, but I have not tested it.

5) Account statements: CornèrTrader distinguishes between “Account statements sent” at CHF 50
and the “Account Statement”, also at CHF 50, while specifying that it is a generic profit report which cannot be considered as a valid tax declaration.
This is a bit puzzling.
It is not clear whether these documents are sent automatically. At first glance, it seems that for "Account statements sent", this is only done on request.
On the other hand, how does it happen at the beginning of January: does CornèrTrader automatically send a letter for 50 CHF with the status of the deposit account as of December 31?

6) Printing transactions (purchase/sale): this seems to be left to the user as a self-service.

Now I would like to share my experience with Migros Bank and its securities trading platform.

1) The 40 Frs flat rate brokerage fee is a false bargain for most purchases and sales of securities, unless you are buying or selling large volumes in one block.
Even if you have acquired a lot of shares at once, you may want to sell only part of them at a given time. Or on the contrary, increase your position on a share. These 40 franc packages that accumulate quickly become prohibitive.
If you buy 1,000 francs worth of shares at once, and assuming that you sell everything at once, the two times 40 francs will make 80 francs, or 8%. That's not nothing!
Not to mention that each transaction generates other costs (stamp duty and brokerage fees).

2) The flat-rate fee of CHF 40 for Migros Bank securities trading may become completely disproportionate in the event of partial execution of the order, as it is then charged in full (and not in proportion to the percentage of the order that could be executed).

Example: A price is at say 1.55 currency units per security, say CHF.
You want to buy 10,000 shares with a price limit of 1.50 currency units per share, i.e. CHF 15,000, within a given period.
The flat rate of 40 CHF would therefore correspond to a commission of 0.27%; great, you say.
The share price fluctuates and momentarily falls below the threshold of 1.50 that you have set for yourself.
Migros Bank therefore buys securities on your behalf, but only manages, say, to acquire 5 of them, because despite its fluctuations, the price of the security remains generally above the threshold that you have set, except at a given moment which does not allow you to acquire the desired number of securities.
Result: you end up with 5 securities (shares) at CHF 1.50, i.e. a position of CHF 7.50 and a commission of CHF 40 charged in full, plus other costs! If you want to resell these 5 securities, you will again be subject to the flat rate of CHF 40. Hello business!
All you have to do is increase your position on the stock and pray that the stock performs well to erase these nasty fees.

3) Migros Bank sends a notice for each security purchased or sold, which is appreciable.
Migros Bank sends a statement of assets at the end of the year, with a summary of the amounts in bank accounts (private, savings, etc.) and deposit positions (securities).
For foreign securities, the currency rates as of December 31 are mentioned, which is convenient.
These statements have a clear layout.

PostFinance:

The fees for stock trading seem attractive, but I haven't tested their brokerage platform.

On the other hand, for bank account management, my experience of the e-Finance platform is very negative (forgive me for deviating a little from the subject):

1) writing that is difficult to read both on the screen and on paper statements:
– texts are switched to capital letters, making them difficult to read
– no graphic highlighting of important elements
(e.g. in bold as is the case at Migros Bank,
both for the e-banking platform and on paper statements)

2) Disastrous payment history browsing:
“Previous” and “Next” buttons requiring countless clicks
while Migros Bank offers real “pagination”
with numbers “1”, “2”, “3”, …, “4”, …
allowing you to more easily go back through the transaction history,
although a pagination displaying the names of the months would still be preferable.

3) insufficient possibility to go back in history at PostFinance: only 15 months
even for a commercial account, which is hell if you file your tax return after March, for example...
At Migros Bank, you can go back 2 years (24 months) in history.

4) Unable to search for past payments by keywords.
(Migros Bank's e-banking, on the other hand, does allow this, although the search functions could still be pushed much further.)

PostFinance only allows searching by recipient account number and you still need to know the approximate amount transferred. But typically if you know the name of the recipient of a bank account, you don't necessarily remember their account number. This search functionality is therefore almost unusable in practice.

5) At PostFinance, it is impossible to display or hide the details of the entries
e.g. communications to the payment recipient
(Migros Bank e-banking allows you to display or hide the details of the transactions.)

6) Numerous errors when ordering payment slips.
(misspelled town name, wrong town from several years ago, etc.) A lack of seriousness that is frightening...

I look forward to reading your feedback on trading securities at CornèrTrader and PostFinance, also regarding the usability of the site and the quality of the statements.

[Author]

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