I made a second account, and it worked fine. No idea what I did wrong on the first try...

Not happy about it at all! I am looking to take my business elsewhere. Any recommendations?

Why are you transerring, what impact do you feel it has?

CH addresses remain with IB UK.

IB Hungary account has different protection, different regulator, different fees and limited currencies for cash balances.

No recommendations other than move countries if you can. Where are you based? CH accounts remain with IB UK afaik.

Hello fellow Efers. Today I bought some SSON via IB and I just noticed that the exchange happened on CHIXUK instead of LSE as usual. Does somebody know why this happened? Also, would someone be kind enough to break down to me the commissions calculation? I'm on a fixed pricing. For the life of me I've never managed to calculate the commissions when I buy SSON (my only investment trust)

You have to pay 0.5% stamp duty for a start on LSE, no idea what happens on CHIXUK maybe Swiss stain duty as well.

Thanks for the input. The following example was not initial investment: 2.1k net amount with 16.58 commission, exchanged on LSE. I've tried and re-tried, no idea how they came up with this commission. Previous ones are more or less the same. Maybe I'll open a ticket and require some insight..

Dear fellow members,

After suffering the custody fees and "advisory fees" of UBS, Credit Suisse and others, few years back I consolidated the family brokerage to Trade Direct. It works pretty straight-forward and whenever it doesn't, there is an account manager to call (behold fees).

We are long investors with 5+ (more like 10) years horizon, essentially buy and hold, occasionally rebalance portfolio. No daytrading.

My questions to you are:
1) while doing our 2020 taxes, I noticed that gradually we're back in hostage fee territory: across all brokerage accounts we pay ballpark CHF 600/year in fees, which I find excessive given limited or no movement
2) has any of you migrated positions from existing Swiss brokerage to Interactive Brokers? Not sure we have automated way of doing so?
3) do we know what jurisdiction is IB under for Swiss retail clients? I both like being with a Swiss broker (legally speaking) and dislike it (cost wise).
4) is there any insurance on the positions - forgive the layman speak, but should something go wrong with IB, is there recourse on recovering the positions and/or moving them elsewhere?

Thank you!

UK

UK's FSCS. For US securities you *might* also covered by SIPC via omnibus claims but IB is hazy on that and doubt you'd get a straight answer from them until shtf. Either way, infinitely better than swiss brokers which provide you with whopping $0 insurance (esisuisse 100k Fr cover is only for cash).

The securities are held in a custody account, not for the benefit of IB, so it should not matter what happens to IB as the securities don't belong to them. This is unlike cash you deposit in a bank, which belongs to the bank & you are a creditor.

Yes of course. But there's a potential issue of broker fraud - if broker actually holds less shares at central depository (that'd be DTCC in case of US securities) than the sum of all shares it told its customers have in their accounts. You can't materialize missing shares out of thin air, that's where SIPC / FSCS would kick in.

Thank you both. Treading carefully before I know complexity of moving positions + possible savings/cost on the IB side

That appears to be influenced (determined?) by your nationality. Someone, IIRC with Swiss residence, of Hungarian or some other EE nationality, said on here not too long ago that they were assigned to IB in ... Hungary ... or elsewhere in EE, without having a choice. Don't remember the details or poster, but it may be worth digging a bit. Alternatively, enquire with IB.

All EU residents get Hungry & there is currently a €25,000 max balance allowed, until thats lifted I won't bother as the last thing I want is an additional jurisdiction for probate.

Btw, does anyone have a recommendation for another reliable US broker as good as IB and that takes non-US-residents? I'm running out of places to stash my money without hitting SIPC limits.

Already have Schwab. Thought of opening TD Ameritrade account but they got acquired by Schwab in the meantime, bummer.

Is Tastywork any good?

not sure which are covered, but big names i'd consider: IB, schwab, fidelity, vanguard.

is it worth the complexity? even if you had 5 to take to you 2.5m. what if it doubles in value? you'll open and manage 10 accounts?

Fidelity and Vanguard are big, yes. Even too big to fail. But they only take US residents.

I initially went with SwissQuote - CHF 53.85 per quarter custody fees. Trading fees are lower than the main Swiss banks from what I've seen, but higher than IB.

I then opened an IB account a couple of years ago, and am adding almost all new holdings there. No custody fees once you get above 100k and trading fees are very low. I'm British and am at IB UK.

SwissQuote still has the advantage of being able to trade some things that I can't do on IB eg Norwegian stocks and a couple of funds.

Why not buy some money market fund instead? Or short term bond fund?