(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links. For more information, read my disclosure.)
I recently compared the different third pillars available in Switzerland. I quickly came to the conclusion that VIAC provides the best third pillars in Switzerland. VIAC third pillars are cheap and have a very good global diversification. Moreover, you can have up to 97% of your portfolio invested in stocks. Before, my only problem with VIAC was that they are mobile-only. But I need to go over this small problem and be smarter about it! And since PostFinance increased their fees, I decided to walk away from them earlier than I planned.
Now that I have chosen my new third pillar, it is time to do the transfer. For this, I first have to open an account at VIAC. Then, I have to transfer my existing third pillar money from PostFinance to VIAC. In this post, I am going to describe the steps necessary to open a VIAC third pillar. In a second time, I am also going to describe how to transfer an existing third pillar to VIAC.
As you will see it is incredibly easy. If you think it is difficult to open a new third pillar and transfer your existing third pillar money on it, then I hope I will convince you that it is trivial! You should not delay changing a bad third pillar for a good one by the fear that it is difficult. Because it is not!
VIAC Referral program
I would like to start by mentioning the VIAC Referral program. I am not doing that because I am a sucker but because it can help you save some money! And you need the code during the registration itself. If you are not interested, just skip to the next section. But who would not want some more savings!
It is interesting to note that VIAC offers a very interesting referral program. If you refer a friend, your fees on 500 CHF of your administrated will be waived. And your friend also gets 500 CHF of its portfolio managed for free! So if you use a referral code during the registration, 500 CHF of your net worth will be managed for free!
You can refer up to three friends. In the best case, that is 1500 CHF that will be managed for free. And this is for life. The Global 100 portfolio has a TER of 0.53. That means that you will save 7.95 CHF per year. Since I will get my third pillar in 35 years, that means I can save up to 278.25 CHF. That is pretty nice!
In fact, it is even better than that. Let’s not forget that this 7.95 CHF per year will get returns from the stock market since they will stay in your account instead of being lost. If you have 5% returns each year from the stock market, this will save you over 750 CHF over the course of 35 years. That is nothing to laugh at!
I have already used all my codes, but you can find some codes in the comments below. Otherwise, ask your friends!
Open a VIAC third pillar
The first thing to do is obviously to create a new account at VIAC. This account will allow you to manage your third pillar. At VIAC, everything is done on your mobile phone. So you only need your smartphone and internet access to create an account. And it is very easy. And the entire application is available in English, French, German and Italian!
Here are the very simple steps you have to do to register your account.
- Download the VIAC application on your phone and install it.
- Start the app and push the Register button.
- Enter your phone number and choose a strong password. Your phone number will be your login for your account. Be sure to remember your password. Ideally, you want something that is easy to write on your phone keyboard. You will only use this password on the phone.
- Enter the code that you received on your phone. You will find the code in your messages if you did not see the notification.
- Enter your personal information. Make sure that you enter everything correctly. It is very easy to do a mistake on a phone.
- Enter whether you pay the AVS (first pillar) and whether you pay the second pillar. Basically, this depends if you are self-employed or not.
- You need to answer a lot of questions about your investor profile. From these questions, VIAC will recommend an investing strategy (basically a portfolio) for you.
- Then you can choose your strategy: I recommend Global 100 if you have a long-term perspective like me. VIAC will recommend something to you based on the investing strategy your questions lead to. But you are free to choose the strategy you want.
- Then you will need to scan your ID or passport. You can simply take a picture from the application. Very easy!
- You can write your signature from your phone to agree to the opening of your portfolio. Once again, they made it very simple!
- If you have a Referral code, you can enter one now. You can take a look at the previous section to have more details on what it means.
- That is it! You now have a VIAC account!
- You can directly validate your mail. Go to Profile > Settings and you will have an option to validate your email.
And that is it already! You have a third pillar at VIAC now! Welcome to the best third pillar in Switzerland.
In total, it took me less than five minutes to open an account. And this is counting the time to write down the steps for the blog. This is much better than most online services. Even though I do not like phones, this went very well! They did a very good job of simplifying the process to the maximum.
Transfer your third pillar
If you already have a third pillar account in another bank, you will want to transfer that money from your previous provider to VIAC. Thanks for VIAC, this is actually extremely simple!
First of all, if your third pillar money is into retirement funds in your current third pillar provider, you will need to sell the funds. You can only transfer cash. That means you may lose on the market (or gain on the market) during the transfer. It is quite possible that you are out of the market for one month or so during the transfer of your funds.
First, you need to get the transfer form document. For this, you can request it from VIAC:
- Open the VIAC application on your phone.
- Login to the application with your phone number and password.
- Go to Deposit (on the bottom bar).
- Choose Transfer (button on the bottom).
- Click “Send Form by Email”
Open your email account and print the PDF that VIAC just sent to you. VIAC already prefilled most of the document for you. Therefore, you only have to fill a few information. You need to set the information about your current third pillar provider. In my case, it was PostFinance. You also need to fill the account number of your third pillar. You should be able to find this information in your e-banking or on your yearly third pillar statement.
Finally, you have to date and sign the document. You can now send the document to VIAC by mail and they will take care of everything for you. The address for the mail is on the document. VIAC will forward the document to your current third pillar provider. And everything will follow from this.
I sent the document by mail two weeks ago. After two days, VIAC already answered me that they transferred the necessary documents to PostFinance. After this, PostFinance needed to do the transfer of the money to VIAC. It was a really fast process. After one week, my money was transferred at VIAC. I was surprised by how fast it was! Once again, I am very satisfied with the process.
I do not know how long it will take other banks to make the transfer. However, I know that some banks are really fast to do that while other banks are really slow at doing it. Fortunately, PostFinance turned out to be one of the fast ones.
After I receive the money in my VIAC account, the cash will be transferred to my portfolio at the next rebalance date (tomorrow normally). Normally, a rebalance is occurring at VIAC every first day of the month. On that day, the money is allocated according to your portfolio. Before, it is only cash. I will keep you updated once my money is transferred to my portfolio.
Conclusion
I am very pleased with the registration process of VIAC. It is incredibly easy. It is one of the easiest registration I have done in Switzerland for quite some time. For comparison, doing the registration of my new private bank account at Migros Bank was much more difficult. With VIAC, everything is simple. They are off with a great start for me.
I received the money quickly. It went really fast. In less than one month, I was able to sell the funds on PostFinance and transfer the money to VIAC. And then, it was invested in my portfolio at the beginning of the next month.
To learn more about VIAC, read my Interview of Daniel Peter, the CEO of VIAC.
What about you? Which third pillar do you have? What do you think of VIAC?
Nice article as usual :)
The only comment I have is that you may have underestimated the return from the savings you make from the referral program. If you consider the compounding effect and assume an average return of 7% on the equity market, then this gives me a saving of 1099.- over 35 years. This is significantly more than 278.25.-
My take home message is: don’t neglect the effect of a small amounts! Over a long period a yearly saving of 7.95.- can turn into a huge number over time. This is even more important with ETFs and mutual funds – a small difference in the expense ratio has a huge effect in the long run (as you have nicely described in your earlier articles)
Hi RB,
You the effect of compounding the savings? The first year you will get 7.95 and then they will get some interest, that is what you mean?
You are right, I didn’t consider that case. I just added a paragraph mentioning this :)
Thanks for mentioning it :)
Hi,
Thanks for your article.
I just wanted to point out that the referral codes are not available anymore. I tried them and it didn’t work, so I found other ones on MP’s forum.
Anyway, I have now three new codes if you want to use them:
UCqBxi
u1do4u
JPk12A
Hi Kevin,
Thank you for the information :)
It is weird, VIAC tells me that only two codes have been used. There should be one working left. I will check them again!
Good luck with your retirement money!
Otherwise there is plenty of referal codes left 😂
OxfDiV
KlIqfP
Cq91Z7
let‘s just hope they don‘t mismanage the funds 🙈
Hi, i used the code KlIqfP.
Hi all
If anybody needs a VIAC referral code, here are mine:
7GRN5d
AglhjS
6DoSx8
Hi all
If anybody needs a referral code. Here are mine:
– aPA6Rc
– hzxSWx
– 6E7kWr
Thanks for sharing!
If someone need a code, here are my ones:
oOBrfF
HjjYD0
s05CPg
Hi all, three more codes:
gALXAj
gDiRLI
FtDTD5
Some more codes for those who need them:
L5RfWX
Uj0oFj
fGDgEr
Thank you for the clear article, I appreciate it!
Like others, I now have some lovely referral codes to share:
97QWs1
Zezc9L
NHsDNR
Thanks Julia
I have used the bottom one
Gavin
More Codes for you guys to save CHF 500!
A95N3X
D5Dvo2
D9SzGd
:)
I just signed up today.
2 of my referral codes for anyone who is interested in signing up.
My wife took the other one!
EQnfh3
dJPFlo
Just opened an account!
if someone is interested, here are some VIAC referral codes:
u60TOL
tC7JKX
l2Ua5Q
thanks for the great article, I had been with UBS and the TER was almost unbelievable! I have just signed up and used someones referral code from above.
I was interested in whether you have gone for the Global100 fund or built your own? I had a couple messages with the VIAC team which said while there is the restriction on holding no more than 60% foreign currencies if you built your own portfolio and for example used the MSCI World Index CHF hedged you could get around this limitation.
Hello David
I am glad you like the article!
I was with PostFinance and the TER was acceptable, but at that time I had no idea what the TER was!
Congratulations on moving away from fees!
For now, I went with the Global 100 Fund. I may switch over to a custom portfolio later on.
I do not think you can bypass the 40% Swiss shares, no. All the custom portfolios I have seen on VIAC are all having exactly 40% Swiss shares. Since it is the law, I would not really try to mess with it.
Thanks a lot for stopping by!
Thanks for this article Mr The Poor Swiss! It helps to read some independent info on VIAC before taking the plunge.
There already seem to be a lot of referral codes on offer (no idea if they are being snapped up?) Anyhow, I just made my first deposit and now have some referral codes to add to the pile in case they are still of use to someone, since it seems to be a win-win:
VtjCpV
am0V6h
fDJpxv
Hi,
I’m glad you liked it! And I am glad to see that you opened a VIAC account, it’s a good decision!
Some of them have been snapped up but it’s unlikely that they are being updated.
Thanks for stopping by!
Some more Referral Codes:
xhxkF1
pr4PsL
WcdQ0w
Here are some invite codes:
IbbPoS
Tugofj
9E3D5W
tnh5Mn
3KFEh0
UUYIwk
D4nIiY
gXzZHs
7MFl1s
Great post! VIAC seems to be making waves in the 3a market, I’m currently hearing about it everywhere so had to investigate – yours was the top post I came across. I found a referral code to use here, so came back to say thank you.
Thanks also for the opportunity to post my codes for myself and others to benefit further – the savings the referral programme offers do add up, over time.
OEq1RY
02SVGl
hkvQ4E
Hi John,
Yes, it does make some waves. However, only people that seems really interested in their finances (and that’s a small number) seem to know about it. I hope it gets bigger later!
Cheers
Aaand some more codes:
wFELen
7g8MEP
Fp9yQZ
Some more codes :
0aHjlo
OYz95D
Yg478M
Bye
I had to go back to one of the above posts from Apr to get a valid code, so here are a few fresh ones:
n4Vnzw
pZkC1j
fRfk1B
thanks to all and to Mr PS!
Hey everyone, here are some more codes, maybe I can help someone with this:
vMnoiJ
o86y6b
Thank you!
More codes available for reducing management fees:
vAYKJO
wiEFIW
mOWtWA
OPOwwU
UoT3J4
1aagV8
Hi Jan,
How come you have 6 codes? Did you open one for you and for your partner?
Thanks for stopping by!
Yes, the codes are also from my partner
Thank you for this great article! I discovered your blog a few days ago and so far it has been extremely informative and helpful. Here are some more codes:
uWem1A
Mz0vnU
3oVmFi
oDblSh
vQipcN
0Dmipk
P.S. I don’t think there’s a limit to the number of codes generated, but probably that as soon as three codes are used the others stop working as well.
Hi Hélène,
Good move!
Good information about the number of codes :) I didn’t think about that, but I think you are right!
Thanks for stopping by!
A big thanks to The Poor Swiss for reporting on VIAC. After further research I also changed to this service and so far completely satisfied with it.
Here are my three invitation codes, if someone would like to use them:
Slf6Cx
MfwjoQ
MfwjoQ
Well done Roman! This is a good move!
Thanks for stopping by!
Hello Roman, I used one of your codes, thank you!
I have one question: how did you get these codes?
bye!
Hi Sekler,
Once you created your account, you can go into the application and go into Invite Friends (or something like that). And there you can send codes to an email address. You can simply send codes to your own email and then share them away.
Thanks for stopping by!
Thank you very much for your articles! From credit cards strategy to this post, every single post has been extremely informative for Non-Swiss like me.
Thanks to you I have successfully transferred from UBS vivainvest 75 world to VIAC :) I also leave some more codes for anyone who needs to start up.
UiBV7o
lbEawB
u3J8Wp
Hi Simon,
I am glad my posts are helpful to you :) This is always great to hear that!
That’s a great move! Congratulations to move to VIAC!
Thanks for stopping by!
Hello there,
here are codes:
GTRQ3L
swo1XV
Thanks to who used the codes!
Hey people!
Feel free to use my codes and we both benefit from it!
qHwhsB
FWti14
5i7r2v
Cheers!
Here’s my referral code, enjoy :)
mC396e
Hello,
Fell free to use my codes:
G7DGcN
AI60nJ
txsjb3
Best regards,
Nicole
Hi there,
I some one wants here is a fresh code left!
4R7Xf2
Best regards,
Nicole
Hello there,
If someone needs a fresh code, here are my ones:
2pTDqB
Ny5ZEI
RhTWpQ
Best regards,
Yianna
Hi there. Really nice platform with excellent UX. I would also like to share my referral codes.
V04PM5
xSsjVS
9VcHoT
Happy investing!
Hi,
I read most of your articles and I appreciate your tips a lot. Keep up.
VIAC looks like a great option, if anybody needs a referal code, here comes a few:
Matteo recommends VIAC for retirement planning in your pillar 3a.
If you want to benefit from unrivaled low fees like Matteo, then become a VIAC customer now.
Best of all, thanks to the recommendation of Matteo, you pay no administration fee on your first CHF 500.00 pension assets – for a lifetime!! 🙌
Use the following code to register:
nLk6cn
Wl5P0j
NRJzto
Regards
Matt
If anyone needs more codes, here some more :):
rDYN5t
9l3zdS
I used VIAC since beginning of the year and I can highly recommend it. They also have iShares ETFs for S&P500 and Nasdaq.
Congratulations on moving to VIAC!
Hi there,
here is a fresh code left :)
CNdhEN
Best,
Tim
Used it! Thanks Tim.
Here are some active codes if anyone is interested:
1Y3Nx0
jeGaqV
DqPWSC
Thank you very much.
Some more active codes, if anyone need one.
Thank you for this wonderful blog. Very helpful.
Codes:
HIYbqP
qEAI4m
JKFI4c
Hi there,
Thank you for sharing!!
here are my 3 fresh code :)
jWRz8T
wvXDF8
SFROqF
Best,
Vincent
Hi there,
here are my code :)
0ANxtN
heNo4B
Best,
Ida
More codes:
pjlOox
n0N3op
yyua94
Kind regards
Hi all :)
Please find bellow my codes:
X7J1ql
LQokuC
lk4fbJ
Kind regards
VIAC code:
9cIAVk
5jCcgd
Hi all,
Here are my codes:
P3vMk7
dKsuK9
Best regards
As most Codes are used and I had to try numerous to find one which is still valid here some new ones:
bc9UJw
mlwXRT
MnE0Cb
NpoYsc
GWABL9
hjdRi7
jQtFsx
oMeFS1
gD0Gql
Here are some fresh new codes :)
PSEXOz
tN5X4M
PNUFnl
Another fresh new codes… ;-)
vbnisD
nJ7gji
DDf4A6
fresh code:
khEtg8
Another 3 fresh codes (try all 3, the first 2 codes in the message I used were unused, people seem to try the 3rd and if it´s been used up assume that all 3 have been used.. :-)
B4cZ9r
oWvVP1
hG3EzT
enjoy:
ejZyJw
Hi,
Two fresh codes :
eNtsDw
ZL6pQl
Hi, here are my fresh codes : )
P3vMk7
dKsuK9