The best financial services for your money!

Download this e-book and optimize your finances and save money by using the best financial services available in Switzerland!

Download The FREE e-book

Swiss Investors May Lose Access to US-Domiciled ETFs

Baptiste Wicht | Updated: |

(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links)

Update 2024: We can still buy US ETFs with IB.

Since the beginning of 2019, Swiss investors cannot buy Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) domiciled in the United States from my previous broker, DEGIRO. This event is bad news for Swiss investors.

This problem is due to new regulations that will come into play. These regulations have already affected all European investors since 2018. But Switzerland was not affected before. We will see what has changed. These issues are based on several European and Swiss laws.

These laws are sad news for European and Swiss investors. I am not a legal expert, so this is only my interpretation of these laws. If I am wrong or I missed something, please let me know!

Normally, this should only come into effect in January 2022. But DEGIRO implemented this earlier, cutting Swiss Investors from the best ETFs available. I have now switched to Interactive Brokers.

In this article, we will see why this is happening and what our different options are. There are several possible solutions to this issue, but none of them is perfect, as we will see.

2024 Update

Before you read this entire article, you should know that as of 2024, we have not lost access to US ETFs with Interactive Brokers as Swiss residents. Some other brokers are still allowing it as well.

These brokers provide execution-only access to these US ETFs, and as such, they are not prohibited from doing so by the new laws. However, they cannot recommend these ETFs directly.

I do not think we have seen the last about these regulations. But currently, what matters is that we still have access to these ETFs.

PRIIPs Regulation for European investors

It all started in January 2018, when PRIIPs regulations entered into effect. PRIIPS is a part of the bigger Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) II law. PRIIPs or Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products is a regulation that is supposed to protect investors. I will not go into details about the law.

I will only focus on the part that is the problem now. These regulations require all funds to provide a Key Investor Document (KID). This document must provide information about the funds and some standardized advice and recommendations to investors. Supposedly, it was made to ensure that all investors have access to all the necessary information to invest in these funds.

When this law came into force, U.S. fund providers did not provide any KID documents, so brokers stopped offering them to their European customers. For these fund providers, where most clients are from the U.S., providing these documents is not a priority. Doing so is too costly for little advantage. For instance, Vanguard already stated that they would not comply with these regulations. That means that for European customers, the only option is to use European ETFs.

Forcing people to invest in European Funds is what the European Union wanted. This law has nothing to do about protecting investors. It is only a strategy by European fund providers to force European investors to invest in their sub-par funds instead of better U.S. funds. Instead of providing better funds, they forced people to use their funds. Forcing people to invest in their funds is sad. This law is supposed to protect investors. But it is doing them a disservice by forcing them to invest in inferior products and reducing their investment options.

PRIIPs regulations are enforced to people from the European Economic Area (EEA). And Switzerland is not part of the EEA. Therefore, Swiss investors were not affected by this problem last year.

So why am I talking about this issue? DEGIRO just stopped offering these ETFs to its Swiss customers. I can still sell my positions. But I cannot buy any more of these ETFs. It is because of a new set of Swiss laws that will soon come into force. Let’s take a look at these Swiss laws now.

FinIA/FinSA for Swiss investors

Swiss and EU laws for investors
Swiss and EU laws for investors, Source: pwclegal.ch

In 2018, the Swiss government voted two new laws: the Financial Services Act (FinSA) and the Financial Institutions Act (FinIA). Once again, I will not go into details about these laws. They are more or less a copy of the European laws for Swiss investors. They also enforce each fund to offer a Key Investor Documented (KID) to all Swiss investors. So, they cause the same issue to Swiss investors that PRIIPS caused to European investors.

Once again, I have the same perspective on this law as I have on the other one. It is just a crude attempt to force people to invest in bad funds and block the U.S. funds instead of improving European funds.

This new set of laws will enter into force on January 1, 2020. However, several of the items will take longer to become active. From my understanding, access to U.S. ETF may be compromised only in 2022.

While I am not a lawyer and could definitely be wrong, the laws are only set to prevent actual recommendations of non-US ETFs. This means that the execution of trades on these ETFs is still allowed. So, as long as a broker is executing only for these ETFs, the law should not prevent the transactions.

From January 2022, brokers will not be able to recommend any US ETF to Swiss investors. At this point, many brokers have stopped offering access to these ETFs entirely.

Why did DEGIRO already enforce this two years in advance? It seems that DEGIRO started implementing them early for their own reasons. Supposedly, they believed this would protect the investors.

I think they are doing that to simplify their systems so that all Europeans have the same set of offers. This is a bad move on their side. There has been no communication whatsoever about this. One morning, my products were closed with the message “Product is closed for the client.” In my opinion, DEGIRO could have handled the situation better.

So, what can we do? I see a few solutions to this problem. Let’s examine each one.

Solution 1: Change broker?

If you want access to US ETFs, you must use one broker that allows it. It is what I did by switching from DEGIRO to IB. And I currently can invest in U.S. ETF. It is worth changing brokers just for this reason.

Interactive Brokers already stopped offering these ETFs to European investors, per the law.

Normally, this should not happen to IB for Swiss residents because IB is providing execution-only access to these ETFs. But if the regulations change or if the interpretation of the law changes, we will need to find a new solution.

Solution 2: Change funds?

Another solution is to comply with the new dumb law and switch to European-domiciled funds. We will not lose access to U.S. stock market indexes, only U.S. funds. There are equivalent Europeans tracking the same indexes. However, this is not a very good solution. European funds are more expensive and smaller. And there is less choice for funds around.

For instance, I will miss Vanguard Total World (VT). This fund replicates the performance of the entire world market. It manages around 17 billion dollars of stocks and has a Total Expense Ratio (TER) of 0.10%. It is made up of more than 8,000 different stocks. VT is a great ETF.

On the European side, there is no full world ETF, at least not in the acceptable TER range. The closer they get is with Developed World ETF. But that still means it is necessary to own several ETFs instead of a single one.

If I had to choose one European Developed World ETF, I would probably go with iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF. It has around 1600 stocks in 23 developed countries and manages more than 14 billion dollars. It has a TER of 0.20%. That is twice as expensive for an inferior fund. It is not bad, of course. But it pales in comparison to VT.

If I were to switch to the European equivalent of VT, I would probably have to hold two funds, and they would be more expensive than VT. So, I am not convinced by this solution. This is another sign that these laws are not doing anything good for investors.

To learn more, you can check out the entire ETF Portfolio with European Funds I would have used.

Solution 3: Use several funds?

The next solution I am thinking of is to use European funds but not a World fund. It is possible to replicate the performance of a world fund by holding several regional funds. Of course, it is still better to own the world fund if it is a good option. But in Europe, there is no great option for a world fund.

The Vanguard Total World (VT) ETF is composed of stocks from these regions:

  1. North America: 58.40%
  2. Europe: 18.60%
  3. Pacific: 13.30%
  4. Emerging Markets: 9.40%
  5. Middle East: 0.20%
  6. Other: 0.10%

We can safely ignore the last two ones and still replicate the world market fund’s performance accurately. That means we would need to hold four funds. You need one U.S. ETF, one Europe ETF, one Pacific ETF, and one Emerging Markets ETF. If you want to have better accuracy, you could also add Canada that is usually included in North America. Or you could find a North American ETF. But I did not find a good one.

It is not a great solution, but this would still beat a world ETF from a European provider. It would be a better TER. You can find U.S. ETF around 0.07% in Europe. And since the U.S. is about 55% of the VT ETF, this would bring down the global TER.

The problem is that you have four funds instead of one. I think that simplicity should be preferred in a portfolio. It may make rebalancing a bit more complicated as some funds may underperform or outperform the others. And you may have to change the allocations if there is a shift in the world’s economy. But I still think it beats having a 0.20% TER fund.

Solution 4: Be a professional investor

Level of protection of Swiss investors by FinIA/FinSA
Level of protection of Swiss investors by FinIA/FinSA, Source: www.pwclegal.ch

You may have noticed that I have talked especially about retail investors in this article. This is because both European and Swiss laws consider different professional investors and retail investors.

They only apply to retail investors. So, if you are a professional investor, you can still use the good old U.S. funds! I am not a professional investor, and I doubt that you are either. However, there is a kind of loophole in the Swiss version of the law. It states that certain high-net-worth individuals may choose to opt out of the law and be treated as professional investors. There is also this loophole in the European version of the law, but the conditions are slightly different.

In the law, a high net worth individual is described as one that:

  • Either declare that they understand the risks of the investment under their qualification and have at least 500’000 CHF.
  • Or dispose of at least two million CHF.

We can see that there is a loophole for the rich. The European Union does not want to hurt the rich in the European Union. This is another stupid part of this law. I am far from filling out these conditions yet. But it is not rare in the personal finance community to see people with more than 500’000 CHF. They could apply to opt-out and be considered professional investors.

Now, I do not know how difficult it will be to opt out. And I do not know if this will qualify you as a professional investor for taxes. In this case, capital gains will be taxed. That is something to consider. But it could be a very good option for people who already have a high net worth. It is something I may do in a few years.

FAQ

Why can’t Europeans invest in U.S. ETFs anymore?

Since 2018, PRIIPS regulations have disallowed European investors to invest in U.S. Funds. These regulations only allow investment in funds with a Key Investor Document (KID). And U.S. funds and ETFs do not provide this KID.

What are the PRIIPS regulations?

Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products are regulations to protect European investors. They prevent them from investing in funds without a Key Investor Document (KID), which in practice prevents European investors from investing in U.S. Funds. The need for KID is part of the biggest set of laws called the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID).

What are the FinIA/FinSA laws?

The Financial Services Act (FinSA) and the Financial Institutions Act (FinIA) are the Swiss equivalents of the MiFID laws from the European Union. These laws will enter into effect in January 2020 but will only affect foreign brokers in 2022. Effectively, they should prevent Swiss investors from investing in U.S. funds.

Conclusion

The best broker
Interactive Brokers
5.0
No custody fees

The broker you need to buy stocks and ETFs reliably and at extremely affordable prices. Trade U.S. stocks for as little as 0.5 USD!

Pros:
  • Extremely affordable
  • Wide range of investing instruments
Invest your money Read My Review

The possible future loss of U.S. ETFs is sad news for European and Swiss investors. The best alternative is to invest in European funds, but they are more expensive and offer fewer choices.

I think that the people who crafted this law did not care about Swiss investors but only about European fund providers. There is no doubt that this will profit European funds. Maybe in the future, it will increase their quality and price. But I am not very confident about that. It is a local lockdown of the market. Instead of protecting the customer, they are locking him into inferior choices.

Because DEGIRO handled this law poorly, DEGIRO users had already lost access to U.S. ETFs several years in advance. I lost confidence in DEGIRO, so I switched to Interactive Brokers.

Currently (as of 2024), since IB is providing execution-only access to these ETFs, we can still trade US ETF with IB.

If you are still using DEGIRO and want access to U.S. ETFs as a Swiss Investor, I recommend switching to Interactive Brokers.

To see an ETF Portfolio without any U.S. ETF, take a look at my European ETF Portfolio.

If you are considering U.S. ETFs, you may want to read about the U.S. estate tax.

What about you? What will your strategy be when we do not have access to U.S. funds anymore?

The best financial services for your money!

Download this e-book and optimize your finances and save money by using the best financial services available in Switzerland!

Download The FREE e-book
Photo of Baptiste Wicht

Baptiste Wicht started thepoorswiss.com in 2017. He realized that he was falling into the trap of lifestyle inflation. He decided to cut his expenses and increase his income. This blog is relating his story and findings. In 2019, he is saving more than 50% of his income. He made it a goal to reach Financial Independence. You can send Mr. The Poor Swiss a message here.

Recommended reading

214 thoughts on “Swiss Investors May Lose Access to US-Domiciled ETFs”

  1. thank You for your extensive article on this topic. I am thinking of another solution. Would it be possible to open an LLC on US soil and invest in the name of a US conpany directly with an US broker. Does it seem feasible to you?

    1. Hi,

      You’re welcome :)

      I think it would be possible indeed. However, I have no experience on the subject.
      But I do not think it would be worth it. Unless you plan to invest a lot of money. You will have to start an LLC on US soil. For this, you may need an address in the U.S., probably a PO box. Then, you need to declare it in the U.S. It is possible then that you to obey to U.S. laws for investments.
      It seems like a lot of trouble and risks.
      I think it is still preferable to pay the price of European ETFs.

      Thanks for stopping by :)

  2. How do brokers identify that you are European investor? Do they look at your nationality, citizenship or country of residence? If your wife opens an account will US-domiciled ETFs available for her?

    1. There is thread “PRIIPS KID on IB”: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/priips-kid-on-ib.322160/

      Page 10 mentions Hong Kong and Australian residents hitting the same US ETF restriction. Turns out they had opened their accounts with IB-UK and then returned back to home. To resolve the problem they could just close the IB-UK account and open a new IB-HK account.

      To me this looks like IB does not use strict nationality filter and just blocks all IB-UK accounts.

    2. Hi Aleksei,

      That’s an excellent question. As Finn pointed, I do not think they look only at nationality. I would say they look more at your country of residence. But I am really not sure about that.
      That’s a good point about my wife. Maybe she could open an account based on her nationality! This will be worth trying if we get locked out of U.S. ETFs.

      Thanks for the suggestion!

      1. I can confuirm IB doesn’t look at the nationality, I am European, living in Switzerland and I just opened an account with IB and could buy US ETFs, nevertheless, they required that I sent a utilities bill to prove my residence in CH

  3. There are brokers in USA who allow ETF trade for European customers. Drivewealth and Tradestation have been suggested. There used to be more but some of them have stopped serving European customers.

    1. Hi Finn,

      I did not know about DriveWealth and Tradestation. THat’s good if they still take European customers. As you said, there is less and less choice for European investors.

      Thanks for the information!

      1. You are welcome.

        I heard about these two brokers from a Reddit thread, where a Romanian investor was writing he could not buy US ETFs any more. He mentions later in the thread he had contacted the two brokers in August 2018 and they are available for Europeans: https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/8boldk/help_looking_for_new_broker_for_us_etfs_access/

        I have had an US brokerage account before because of lower trading fees. This was when Swedish broker Nordnet had raised their US transaction fee to an unbearable level USD 15. The new broker was mostly cheap but withdrawing with international wire transfer was USD 40. Naturally they wanted the funding in USD into an US bank account. Funding the account was expensive because banks ripped me off with at least 1% forex and 14-20 EUR money order fees.

        Using another broker Lynx (or IB) with Euro account and to do the forex from there and then do US wire transfer eventually solved the funding part. With withdrawal I would have needed US bank account with ACH to lower the cost. Instead I did the withdrawal only once when closed the account. I closed the account because the introduced monthly fee.

        Then there is the US estate tax. There could be something different in the tax treaty between Switzerland and USA. If not, the US tax law applies and estate tax will have to be paid when foreign investor dies. Wikipedia gives impression it is about 0.5%, so not the end of the world itself but somebody still has do the paperwork. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_tax_in_the_United_States

      2. We also have the estate tax from Switzerland as well.

        Wow, 15 USD per transaction is pretty bad indeed. It seems like the Swiss price. This is terrible.

        It’s very difficult these last few years to find a good broker for European. Since the new law, no broker will offer U.S. ETFs to European customers. We are safe one more year in Switzerland, but it may happen too for us next year.

        We’ll see how that goes!

        Thanks for sharing your experience!

  4. Probably it is time to think about real investing. Since one door seems to be closing, you may open another which delivers steady income and you will have full control of costs (no fees, AKA TER). It is nothing new when it comes to this subject, I am referring to dividend stock, but by reading your blog I see that you are not the fan of it. You are more believing in funds, which is great, but those are only one part of an income focused portfolio. No worries, I am not selling anything. I just thought I share some words and you go as you like(or dislike). I am also new to the thing, just started some years ago and it seems to be working fine. So yeah, just think about investing in US dividend stock paying dividend since long years or even decades and they increase or at least dont cut their paying behavoire since long. It is not that easy to find them and even not easy to buy at the right entry but it is possible.

  5. This really screwed me over and, as you point out, really horrible job in communication by DEGIRO.

    I am far away from the 100k so moving to IB would be a big bump in fees costs for a few years. This would be an acceptable costs if I knew I could invest in US ETFs for some time. But if IB is also going to remove those ETFs from the available pool for european investors in 1 year then it’s really not worth the effort and the trouble.

    I don’t know whether opening up an IB account and swallow the 120CHF yearly fees with the hope I can keep buying US ETFs for more than just the 2019, or staying with crappy DEGIRO for the low-to-nonexistant fees and pay the extra TER.

    1. Hi Mario,

      Yes, I completely understand your frustration. I still do not need why they moved forward with this law one year in advance. And especially without a mail or a notice in the application.

      If you are far from reaching 100K and are using a Basic account from DEGIRO, I think you can safely stay with them and use European ETFs from now on. It sucks, but it is not that bad. You can still find ETFs with reasonable TERs (below 0.2%). It will not be as good as VT. But we can live with that.

      Personally, I am considering changing to IB for several reasons. First, the reasons mentioned in this post. Second, DEGIRO does not allow me to send money to them from another account than my main bank account. And I will soon receive money from shares from my company that will arrive in USD. And IB is a very good solution to receive this money without fees. Finally, I am using the Custody account at DEGIRO. And I realized this is actually more expensive than IB. Since I will should reach 100K in the next two years, I think my best bet is to move to IB. But this may not be the best bet for everyone.

      Let me know what you decide!

  6. Hi there, love your blog! Been investing with DeGiro since the summer. Since I’m from Netherlands, we already have this law since 1st of Jan 2018. I choose to start investing in Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF (ISIN: IE00B3RBWM25), which is also reflecting all the world while still having no transaction fees. Maybe this can also be an option for you!
    M

    1. Hi M @ Radical FIRE,

      Thanks :)

      At least in Europe, the law was implemented on time, not in advance like for Swiss in DEGIRO ;)

      Vanguard FTSE All-World ETF is a good ETF. Unfortunately, it has a TER of 0.25%. This is 2.5 times higher than VT. Just with this, the transaction fees are less important than the TER. That is why U.S. domiciled funds are very interesting.
      However, I agree that it is the best All-World fund out there. Once I have to choose from only European funds, I will either choose it or use several funds instead of one. This may be worth the trouble to save on TER.
      At least, I should have one year to decide :)

      It seems these comments help me complete my feeds list :) I will check out your blog now!

      Thanks for stopping by :)

      1. Hi,

        Are you talking about withholding dividends?
        It’s true that there is some difference. On U.S. funds you can reclaim half of the withholding (so you lose 15% in total). If you have Swiss funds, the withholding is large (30-39%) but is counted towards income tax. However, I believe that European funds holding U.S. shares will also get a tax by the U.S. for the dividends and this is before you see anything. In the end, I do not thing there is such a large difference. But I am not an expert on the subject at all!

        I will have to spend some more time thinking about that in the future.

        Thanks for stopping by

      2. On US funds you can reclaim half of the withholding _of the US dividends_, so the US funds are strictly better _for US stocks_. But when it comes to foreign dividends, the tax withholding are gone in both cases,* but the tax rate depends on the fund domicile. Let’s say a fund holds some German stock that pays dividends. If the fund is based in the US they will likely have to pay higher tax on this German dividend than an equivalent fund based in Ireland.

        Checking all of these tax treaties is a lot of work that I haven’t done. But the common wisdom says it that Ireland has one of the best set of such treaties, followed by Luxembourg. In any case, these differences are likely more important than a 0.15% difference in TER.

        (*) Swiss companies are a special case here. If you invest in Swiss companies via a Swiss fund, there will be no tax leakage.

      3. Hi,

        I started binge reading your blog few days ago, thank you for sharing your experience, its a great blog!

        It’s already an older post/comment but when I got here and read this (and also Alex’ comment below) I started doubting. When I read about your obsession to save 0.01% TER here and there I already thought that it must be optimization at the wrong level. I think you haven’t really yet took the time to read the linked post in Princedelulus comment? (It is a great summary that covers large parts of the taxation questions. Other sources are: https://www.10×10.ch/im-steuerdschungel/ (german) or https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Nonresident_alien_with_no_US_tax_treaty_%26_Irish_ETFs)

        I think the strong effect of the withholding tax is something which may not be not obvious at first glance, but it will influence the total cost in any case (as a swiss domiciled investor) much stronger than two digits behind the decimal separator – even when claiming back 15%.
        The withholding taxation also explains why EU ETFs have a larger TER and it shows that, in fact, they are, as already stated here and in many other places, not as bad as the TER alone would make you think when you correctly count in your actual taxation of US ETFs. It would also make a nice post in your blog.

      4. Hi Pete,

        Yes, I updated this post recently, some of the comments are older. I would not call it an obsession, but I understand why you would think that.
        I agree that a 0.01% TER will not make a huge difference. This is 100 CHF per year per million invested.
        On the other hand, once we started talking about 0.1%, I think it’s significant, this is 1000 CHF per million you have in retirement. It could make a difference.

        The difference with withholding is much more significant than that. I should have emphasized this in this article. I did it on another article: https://thepoorswiss.com/etf-portfolio-european-etfs/
        Once we know definitely what is going to happen next year, I will update these posts again. And I will emphasize more on the withholding part.

        Thanks for stopping by!

  7. Where can I find TER per ETF?

    I’m not national swiss, so I’m investing in European ETF. I’ve been investing mainly in stocks, and after reading your blog I’ve bought some shares of Vanguard FTSE All-world ETF.

    1. Hello Hi,

      You can find TER of European ETFs on justetf.com for instance. Or if you know the exact name of the ETF, you can go to the provider website and they will give you the TER for each of their funds. Normally, it is not an issue to find the TER. For which ETF do you need the TER?

      Thanks for stopping by.

      1. I’ve checked TER, in your recomendation webpage justetf.com, for Vanguard AllWorld IE00B3RBWM25. It’s my first investment in ETF.
        Thanks!

  8. I really do not understand why the big US ETF’s do not simply comply. There must be more than only translating the KI(I)D or a few other documents in local European languages. Let’s be serious, translating a 2-pager in another language costs Vanguard or other billion-dollar funds 100 dollars in translation expenses. Why is everyone repeating that ‘it is too costly, they do not want to do this investment’? Even if it was about more than one single document, or having one of their lawyers investigate the formalities for compliance to European regulations, that would be peanuts for these funds if they can keep or gain additional funding.
    The fact that we as european investors have to search for alternatives is however completely to the point and explained very clearly in your post! I wrote my first post of a new blog on exactly the same topic, maybe it can give some additional help or insights: http://www.rumoursonlife.com/investing/index-investing-europe/

    1. Hi Mr. Rumours,

      I do not think there is only the translation issue. You need to first create this document and then translate it in the language of each investor you want to work with. And there may be lawyers involved as well.
      Nevertheless, I think you are right and it is not only about money. Some of the big U.S. providers also have European funds. For instance, Vanguard has funds in Europe and they have higher TER than their U.S. funds. So I guess that they prefer European to invest in those funds and pay more rather than invest in their U.S. funds and pay less. This is probably true for most fund providers.

      Nice post. I did not know your blog. Good to have one more European FIRE blogger in my RSS feeds!

      For this year, I think I will still be able to invest in U.S. funds via Interactive Brokers. But next year, I will have to choose one (or several) European funds. It’s a pity!

      Thanks for stopping by :)

  9. I went for option 1; moved to IB and bought VT yesterday, but kept my VT shares on Degiro instead of transferring/selling them.

    Let’s see what happens next year regarding this.

    1. Wow, that was fast ajPT! Well done!

      For now, I think I will do the same as you. For now, there is no point in selling shares in DEGIRO since I do not have enough anyway to reach the 100K limit of IB.
      Even in one year, we probably can hold the shares in both accounts anyway. But the problem will be to find adequate replacement funds.

      Thanks for sharing and stopping by!

      1. I assume I will do the same -> Open IB Account and invest in VT this year and leave the rest on Degiro for now. To be honest I was mainly on Degiro because of the free ETFs and now this seems not interessting anymore (or at least at the moment).
        Another point why I don’t like the switch to European ETFs is to invest in EUR at the moment. I would rather stay in USD or CHF. This opinion might be subjective but I still feel better with it.

      2. I was also on DEGIRO for the free ETFs and the very cheap fees. But now that they do not have access to very good ETFs in the free list, I do not think it is a big advantage anymore. Moreover, I was considering getting an IB account anyway since my company will send me some USD when I sell my ESPP shares and RSUs. And DEGIRO only accepts one account.

        I have to agree with you about EUR. I do not feel comfortable holding too much EUR. I prefer some USD for now. Like you, it might be subjective as well.

    2. I hope that over time some US ETFs will have KID but I have seen none so far. I don’t know why people think that IB is different. It is not. The only solution to continue investing in US ETFs is to have an account in the US. Good luck with that, as the US has long closed access to its banks by foreign investors in order to not have to deal with the European regulatory madness. At the moment the only solution is to be classified as a professional investor. Good luck if you are investing your kids savings. Every regulation in Europe is a balance between hurting and protecting the financial industry. The result is that it is neither good for the industry nor for the consumers. Regulators should all be fired.

      1. Hi Peter,

        I also hope that some U.S. ETFs will have KIID but I doubt it. They do not really care about that. This is especially true since the big ETF providers such as Vanguard also have European ETFs. So I guess they want people to invest in these instead.

        I don’t think that IB is different. However, according to some people, the law for Switzerland is different than the law from Europe and could make a difference. But I honestly do not know if that’s true or not.

        I completely agree with you about the regulations. They have no good purpose for people. They do not serve anyone correctly :(

        Thanks for stopping by!

Leave a Reply

Your comment may not appear instantly since it has to go through moderation. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *