What would be a good way to tuck away 40-60k and make it grow? I won't touch it for a *long time (I hope anyway)? In no way do I want to loose the money by investing in risky ventures. Currently I have put it aside in a normal Swiss savings account. I live in CH and plan to stay here long term.

*long time = minimum 2-3 years and maximum 5+ years.

If you are wanting CH denominated savings and a secure as possible ie not investing in the money market or shares then you will be looking at 3/4% and little more unless you are investing in a fixed term saving. You cannot reasonably expect to get 3% interest when you can borrow for 2.8%!

Due to the length of the investment you will find that banks have pretty good income oriented fonds. These are ones designed to ensure you get a minimal risk low return investment and you can reasonably expect 2-2.5%p.a. over a period of 3 years. Any Bank will be willing to show you such products.

When you say long term what do you mean. If you are for example intent on living in the UK in 15 years time ie very long term then you would be very well advised to have a UK savings account. I know the Halifax is paying me 7% at the moment on a fixed term scheme and here you then remove currency risk.

With reference to BVG and IIIa. You can pay 6192 per year into your 3rd pillar which is tax efficient and is pretty risk free. When you receive your pension statement every year you will see a column which states how much more BVG you can invest ie you make a voluntary additional contribution. I think it is at this juncture worth saying there are only limited ways to access your money once you take this route but you will get 2.5%!

you have an issue here in your desire for short-term investment with good returns (but no risk) and your amount is not big enough for you to get out of only meeting a grunt (retail banking not the "private banking, special handshake client advisor") that you seek.

Interest rates and inflation are extremely low here. Move your money abroad and you start to play with exchange rates. Your short-term investment will be subjected to tax (income and interest) and you can't avoid this as you can't/don't want to put this sum into a pension.

You might find some advice at your bank, it might be as Richard suggested above or they might go for something FX-based or commodities and precious metal-based but frankly, you're not going to see much more interest than if you stuffed it under the bed (once inflation and your friendly taxman has been factored in).

Sad but true....

If you move money abroad, do you get chased by the taxman? How do they find out?

Ironic isn't it, everyone outside CH seems to want a Swiss bank account, and when you here, you long for those 5-7% interest rates that seem to abound elsewhere

Important point to note: The interest rate has nothing to do with the location. If you had a CHF denominated account in Luxembourg you'll also get low interest rates. If you have an AUD account in Switzerland you'll also get around the same interest rates as people might in Australia. So in other words what counts is the currency you choose, not the country where the account is held.

True, but I can imagine UBS would charge you to have an account in high risk AUD with them?? Or for withdrawing etc.

Whereas if you have INGDirect for example, you get 5.85 % on your dollars and it is free, no costs involved.

By the way, I looked into those Swiss investment funds at UBS a while ago, they looked pretty poor to me. Most have 2.5% but you pay about 1% of that in fees?! Anything with low risk had interests that end up the same as say a 1% yellow account.

I'm actually looking to invest a similar amount at the moment. My leaning at the moment is to spread it across 4-5 blue chips. Those kinds of shares fluctuate as all shares do, but baring disaster they climb well over a period of years.

Also, shares are good if you're a Swiss tax resident as Swiss capital gains tax only extends to property, not stocks.

Muze I am with UBS as well and I looked at their stuff and was not impressed.

Btw I am not going to risk the money but what options are there for high risk money growing schemes? What does high risk mean? Does it mean you can loose the whole 60k?

Yes, you can lose the lot.

Risk vs Reward: High risk, high reward. Low risk, low reward.
Only invest (stocks etc) what you can afford to lose etc.

If you want 75% over 5 years return, be prepared to accept 95% loss over the same 5 years.

If you want 10% over 5 years with minimal risk, put it in PostFinance or the Isle of Man.

Now, if you're offered 100% return over 2 years: that's too good to be true, so it *will* be too good to be true.

Or I could take up the offer to help one of those nice Nigerian chaps who has £100 million in petro-dollars... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_fee_fraud (wikepedia)

Why not split it?
Some off-shore, some in bank (just in case), some with PostFinance, some with UBS etc... risk diversification...

Not if you are over the 10K limit with them which you would be. I have accounts in several currencies and pay no fees for maintenance

The amount of money you are talking about investing is not high enough to get the good interest rates on a simple, no risk bank account. The bigger returns are normally achieved in various fonds whose risk factor will vary. The best I found that offers me a higher interest than a normal savings account is the e-Deposito account from PostFinance. Interest rate on Swiss Francs is 1.5% and in an Euro account 1.875% - the catch is that one most have a normal Yellow account with them in order to open the e-Deposito account.

The also offer something called the Yellow Fixed-Term Deposit which vary from 1 to 10 yrs. You mentioned a maximum of 5 years. That would receive a guaranteed intest rate of 2% if you have the money in CHF or 3% if you have it in Euros.

At the present, PostFinance seems to offer the best rates for non-risk investments. www.postfinance.ch (and their website is in English also)

One possibility that is definitely worth considering is "structured investments with 100% capital protection". This way the risks are highly reduced. And there is quite a good range/variety of investment oppurtunities including stocks, currency market ...

Is there any issues with this?


More info here
https://entry.credit-suisse.ch/csfs/...roduktinfo.jsp

The issues with structured products is that they are handled as managed investments which means that one ends up paying a commission or fee for making the investment. Secondly, although the capital (in some instances) might not be at risk, the interest derived from the investment is used to "play" the market. I was a stock broker with Merrill Lynch back in California and when someone came in to ask for a non-risk investment with a better interest rate than a savings account we would put them in money markets or CDs, depending on the desired investment term. Here, structured products try to emulate money markets or CDs but more on a fond-like type of investment vehicle. At any rate, for a 3 to 5 yr small amount investment with no risk and a reasonably good guaranteed rate of return I still believe PostFinance offers the best products - at the moment.

Richard you state
I know the Halifax is paying me 7% at the moment on a fixed term scheme and here you then remove currency risk.
Because I shall be selling my house very shortly here in England, shall have Sfr.400.000.
Have asked several Financial Investment guys here on the return for that much. Have had between !2k and 22k, but fees would be 8 to 10.000 Sfr.
so they say. Being naive, thought I could put the lot in accounts like yours (cash accessible) with such good rates at the moment. I will be a non taxpayer, according to the Inland Revenue. Being my sprightly 65, I shall not be returning to England.
Can I ask on here what others would do with (for me) soooooo much money.
Can I privately mail someone who could also give tips on tax, which have not been mentioned on this site. I have downloaded all 51 pages "wegleitung" for taxes, but find it quite difficult. Have mailed Steuerampt Basel, and they just give me a calculator, but it does not take into account vermogen. Also, I shall be living in Riehen and they have different rules.
Am "not quite happily" going round the bend."

Well I'd buy a Ferrari and a new BMW K1200R but if that's not your bag then if I were in your position I would put it somewhere safe - your bank in Switzerland will be able to advise you, don't expect high returns but you won't get ripped off with charges either, and avoid (almost) any chance of losing it.

Avoid these people. Pretty sure they trawl the EF and other sites looking for 'clients'.

Thank you so much for your reply Swiss Bob.
With my mail, I was not asking any member for advice as such. I would not be so presumtious and always make up my own mind, but your very excellent link was very helpful who not to believe.
Answers on bad experience would also be very helpful. I have searched this site very extensively for information but am still pretty new and would never have thought to look under Spam.
As I said, it is so very frustrating trying to make decisions from so far away.
By the way it is well known here that Churchill (Insurance) is actually Winterthur CH. Whether there is some connection?

from personal experience i know that opening a bank account with a foreign bank in eastern europe is a decent decision.
most german banks are paying 15% interest on the local currency. so you convert your chf or euro into local. inflation rates are 10%, but local currency apprecation against the euro has averaged about 10% in several of these countries per year. so your net return after inflation is 15% on a regular savings account

Swissbob's warning is very relevant. I learned the hard way that I should not have taken financial advice from a company with a distinguished sounding name which claims to provide "independent financial advice" for expats on matters relating to offshore investment/retirement planning/tax-efficient investment. The so-called independent financial advisors/consultants are sales experts who will be prepared to tell you what you need to hear in order to sell you an expensive long-term investment. They can be very convincing and persuasive.

The name of the so-called "advisor" I ran into appears on the expatmeetups site.

I have no idea whether there is any connection. Having learned how the other company with which I had dealings operate, I would suspect that the company referred to in the thread linked by swissbob is simply "borrowing" a respectable-sounding name that unsuspecting clients will be inclined to associate with reliabilty. Implication can go a long way.

There is no link whatsoever. Churchill Insurance is a reputable insurance company. The other not quite so...

obligationen

no risk
gueranteed 3,2 % when willing to fix for 3 years
2,8% for 2 years

cheers
P F H