Swissquote vs Interactive Brokers 2024
| Updated: |(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links)
Interactive Brokers is my favorite foreign broker, and Swissquote is my favorite Swiss broker. Both brokers are very well known and have a good reputation.
So, it is time to compare Swissquote and Interactive Brokers in detail. In this article, I will examine their fees, features, and usability. We will also examine the user reviews for these two tools.
|
Best foreign broker
|
Best Swiss Broker
|
|
5.0
|
4.5
|
Swissquote
Swissquote is a Swiss broker and bank. They were founded in 1996 and have more than 700 employees. The broker itself is part of the Swissquote Group Holding SA company.
Although a Swiss company, it offers financial services to several countries. But in this article, I focus on Swiss investors.
Swissquote is a publicly traded company, meaning it must reveal its financials publicly. It is also a licensed bank in Switzerland. They currently have more than 400’000 users.
They offer access to many financial services. However, I only want to focus on the stock exchange brokerage services in this article.
Interactive Brokers
Interactive Brokers is a broker from the United States with a presence in Europe.
They have several legal entities. You will deal with a specific entity, depending on where you are from. For instance, Swiss investors deal with the entity from the United Kingdom.
They also are a publicly traded company and a very profitable brokerage company. They have more than 1500 employees worldwide and were founded in 1978. As of 2021, they have more than 1.6 million customers.
They also offer access to a wide range of investment instruments. In this comparison, I will only focus on the stock broker part of Interactive Brokers.
Features
The most important criterion is that your broker should have all the needed features. So, we start by comparing the features of Swissquote vs Interactive Brokers.
While important, it is not a very difficult criterion. Indeed, most investors do not need many features. You only need a few features if you are a passive investor like me. And after that, some features are nice to have but not essential.
Both brokers give you access to the most important stock exchanges, such as the Swiss Stock Exchange (SIX) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). And they give you access to the biggest European stock exchanges.
You can access stocks, bonds, and ETFs with both brokers, which is probably everything most investors need. You can also access futures, options, and more advanced investments, but that only concerns a few investors.
Very importantly, both brokers will give you access to US ETFs. These ETFs are the most efficient for Swiss investors.
Both brokers will let you trade from your desktop and your mobile phone. And they both have different applications.
We should also talk about a few advanced features. Both brokers will give you access to margin loans if you need leverage. Interactive Brokers allows you to buy fractional shares, while Swissquote does not have this feature. I do not think it is a big deal, but some people like to have access to fractional shares.
Both Swissquote and Interactive Brokers should have all the features you need to invest in the stock market.
Fees
The fees of a broker are the second most crucial criterion, very close behind the first. So, we compare the fees of Swissquote vs Interactive Brokers.
We start with account management fees. Interactive Brokers has no custody fees of any sort. At Swissquote, you will pay 0.025% custody per quarter, with a minimum of 15 CHF and a maximum of 50 CHF. So, you will pay between 60 CHF and 200 CHF per year in custody fees. This custody fee is not cheap, depending on your account size.
And if you have more than one million CHF In your Swissquote account, you will pay an extra 0.03% management fee (on assets above a million). This will make Swissquote much more expensive for wealthy investors.
Next, we must also consider transaction fees. IB has two fee systems: tiered and fixed. I am using the tiered system because it is cheaper for small investments. If you want all the details, I have made a complete comparison of Interactive Brokers’ fixed and tiered systems.
Swissquote has only one system, with different fees for each stock exchange. On top of that, SQ has a list of so-called ETF Leaders, with a fixed cost of 9 CHF on the Swiss stock exchange and 9 EUR on European stock exchanges. However, even for ETF Leaders, you still pay the stock exchange fees on top of the 9 CHF.
Finally, Swissquote is a Swiss broker, so you must pay Swiss stamp duty. This fee is 0.075% on Swiss stocks and 0.15% on foreign stocks.
We can run a few examples:
- 1000 CHF of CHSPI (ETF Leader): 11.75 CHF at SQ, 3.60 CHF at IB
- 10’000 CHF of CHSPI (ETF Leader): 18.5 CHF at SQ, 9.20 CHF at IB
- 1000 CHF of Nestlé (SIX): 10.75 CHF at SQ, 3 CHF at IB
- 10’000 CHF of Nestlé (SIX): 37.50 CHF at SQ, 6.50 CHF at IB
- 1000 USD of VT (NYSE): 16.5 USD at SQ, 0.35 USD at IB
- 10’000 USD of VT (NYSE): 45 USD at SQ, 0.37 USD at IB
We can observe a few important when comparing the fees of Swissquote vs Interactive Brokers.
- For ETF Leaders, Swissquote is relatively affordable but still twice more expensive than IB.
- For Swiss shares, the difference is already more pronounced, about five times more expensive on large operations.
- For US shares, Swissquote is much more expensive than IB, more than a hundred times.
If you want to buy something in a foreign currency, you must convert from your base currency, from CHF to USD. Interactive Brokers will charge you 2 USD per currency conversion. Swissquote will charge you 0.95% for each currency conversion.
We must compare the fees of Swissquote vs Interactive Brokers for a few conversions:
- 100 CHF to USD: 2 USD at IB, 0.95 CHF at SQ
- 1000 CHF to USD: 2 USD at IB, 9.5 CHF at SQ
- 5000 CHF to USD: 2 USD at IB, 47.5 CHF at SQ
For currency conversions, Interactive Brokers will generally be much cheaper than Swissquote. If you convert less than 200 CHF, IB will be more expensive than SQ.
Overall, Interactive Brokers is significantly cheaper than Swissquote. The difference will not be critical if you only invest in Swiss ETFs. However, the difference can be significant if you primarily use US ETFs.
Safety
If you invest significant money with a broker, you want your money to be safe. So, we must compare the safety and regulations of Swissquote vs Interactive Brokers.
We start with the regulations. Swissquote is regulated in Switzerland by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). Interactive Brokers is regulated in the US by the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) and in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). So, both brokers are regulated by well-respected supervisors.
Both brokers segregate the money from the customers from their main entities. So, if they default, the creditors will have no claim on the money from the customers.
In case of bankruptcy, in theory, all your assets should be safe since everything is separated from the entity itself. If one of the custody banks defaults, your cash has extra protection. For Swissquote, your cash is protected by esisuisse for up to 100’000 CHF. With IB, your cash, stocks, and bonds will be covered by SIPC for up to 500’000 USD (250’000 USD limit for stocks).
If you have a lot of cash, protection will get even better since they will use multiple custody banks, and each bank will get protection up to 250’000 USD. You need to opt for the Insurance Bank Deposit Sweep program. So, in theory, your cash is safe at IB for up to 2.5 million USD. But this should not be the case for most of my readers.
The fact that both brokers are publicly listed companies lends credibility to these two companies.
Regarding technical security, both brokers seem to be doing everything they need. I have not found any information about data leaks or security breaches. They both offer a second factor of authentication, which is extremely important.
Swissquote, being based in Switzerland, will likely be easier to deal with in case of an issue. Given the limited access to customer service, dealing with serious issues with IB may be harder.
Overall, both brokers are among the safest stock brokers available. I have significant money in my IB account and feel safe with it.
Reputation
Reputation is also an essential part of choosing a broker. This tells a lot about what users think about the services. So, we must see what users think of Swissquote vs Interactive Brokers.
In both cases, these brokers have an excellent overall reputation. I have never heard of massive issues with these brokers.
On TrustPilot, both brokers get similar scores: 3.3 stars for IB and 3.2 stars for Swissquote. People complain about the customer service for both services. While this is not a great sign, it is the case for almost every service I have reviewed.
People complain about the complexity of using Interactive Brokers and the high fees of Swissquote.
Good reviews indicate that people find trading with Swissquote very simple and like Interactive Brokers’ fees.
Overall, the reputation of both brokers is sound. Many people are complaining, but none of these complaints are very worrying. Overall, long-time users of both brokers are happy with it.
Swissquote vs Interactive Brokers Summary
We can make a summary of Swissquote vs Interactive Brokers:
|
Best broker overall
|
Best Swiss Broker
|
|
5.0
|
4.5
|
|
Extremely cheap
|
Very affordable
|
|
|
|
|
- Outstanding prices
- Many investing instruments
- Excellent execution
- Access to US ETFs
- Good reputation
- A little intimidating at first
- Swiss broker
- Easy to use
- Many investing instruments
- Access to US ETFs
- Good reputation
- Expensive to trade US shares
- Expensive currency conversion
We can draw a few conclusions for Swissquote vs Interactive Brokers:
- Interactive Brokers is significantly cheaper than Swissquote.
- Swissquote is slightly easier to use than Interactive Brokers.
- Both are good brokers with good reputations.
- Currency conversions are much better with IB than with Swissquote.
- Both brokers give you access to US ETFs.
- Swissquote is a Swiss broker while Interactive Brokers is a foreign broker with entities in Europe.
Conclusion
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!
- Extremely affordable
- Wide range of investing instruments
Overall, both Swissquote and Interactive Brokers are great brokers for Swiss investors.
For me, the choice between Swissquote vs Interactive Brokers boils down to a few points:
- If you want the cheapest broker, use Interactive Brokers.
- If you feel safer with a Swiss broker, use Swissquote.
- If you want to trade US stocks and ETFs heavily, use Interactive Brokers.
- If you only want to trade CH stocks and ETFs, use either of them.
I am trading mostly in US stocks and do not mind a good foreign broker, so I use Interactive Brokers. When my portfolio reaches a significantly higher (yet to be determined), I may probably also have a Swiss broker account and trade my Swiss shares with them for some diversification.
Many Swiss investors feel more comfortable with a Swiss broker. In this case, they should not think too much about using the cheapest broker. In the long run, what matters is to invest with good fees and Swissquote provides. If using a foreign broker makes you worried, do not use it.
For more information on these two brokers, read my reviews:
What about you? Which broker do you prefer?
Download this e-book and optimize your finances and save money by using the best financial services available in Switzerland!
Download The FREE e-bookRecommended reading
- More articles about Best Brokers
- More articles about Investing
- How to Open an Interactive Brokers Account in 2024?
- IBKR Global Trader Review 2024 – Simple stock trading
- Neon vs Yuh: Best digital bank in 2024?
Hi Baptiste,
Thanks a lot for this review. I would like to ask you a suggestion and to see if my reasoning is correct.
I’m Italian but Swiss resident since 2016 and I have at the moment a SwissQuote account in which I have two ETFs (UBSETF SMIM CHF DIS traded in CHF and
and VANGUARD FTSE ALL-WORLD UCITS traded in EUR).
I’m considering to open a IB account and continue to trade the Vanguard there because of cheaper fee on the long term. My plan for
the long term is to continue to fund the Swissquote via my extra CHF monthly saving and the IB via my bank deposit that I have already in EUR denominated.
I’m few question:
– It this strategy ok? or would it make more sense to move all in IB?
– Can I move the ETF share I have already in the Swissquote to IB easily?
– Is there any tax consideration I should take care for the IB account?
– If I move outside Switzerland can I still use Swissquote and IB to fund my ETF investment?
I would like to stay for the long term on two / three ETFs for my investment. In case you have written something and you have suggested some particular ETFs I would be happy to read more.
Thanks so much for all the information and effort you put here!!
Andrea
Hi Andrea,
Your strategy sounds good. It may make sense to have two brokers for peace of mind. It’s really up to you if you want the extra complexity. It’s a matter of balance.
Normally, both IB and SQ support share transfer, so you should be good to transfer them but it likely won’t be free.
No tax differences between an IB account and a SQ account.
I am not sure about SQ if you move abroad, but IB is very flexible about that since they have many entities in the entire world.
Thanks a lot for your work :)
I have a question: Do you recommend to add CHF or GBP into interactive brokers account?
Thank you
Gionas
Hi Gionas,
If you have CHF, you should send CHF directly and if you have GBP you should send it directly as well :)
It handles many currencies directly, there is no advantage to send one over the other.
Hello,
Thanks for your Article !
Do you plan to compare also Yuh ? They have good fee (better than Swissquote).
I invest only in Yuh since they are here (unfortunately you can’t transert your assets). It’s pretty basic, but there is all I need for monthly investment.
Best regards
Hi,
Yuh is not always cheaper than Swissquote.
My readers don’t seem very interested in Yuh, so I will probably not compare Swissquote and Yuh. And Interactive Brokers is in a totally different league than Yuh.
Hi Baptiste, thanks a lot for the comparison.
Two quesitons:
1)
What about Postfinance (E-Finance). They use the same software/plattform as Swissquote and seem to be a little cheaper as Swissquote.
Do you see any other reason why not using Postfinance (E-Trading)?
2)
About Safety at IB:
You write: “You need to opt for the Insurance Bank Deposit Sweep program.”
How can I do this exactly at IB?
Thanks a lot for your answers.
Regards,
Hi Dan,
1) In some cases, PF is cheaper than SQ, but not all. I have a review of PostFinance E-Trading.
I would not trust PF with my money, they are not very professional. Since they use SQ anyway, I’d rather use SQ directly.
2) I believe you can do that in your account settings, but maybe this option is only available when you have enough for it to be worth it. Since this is only for cash, I don’t really care.
Salut Baptiste,
As usually great content.
There is no doubt that SQ’s fees are (crazily) high. However, looking how the geopolitics can take things upside/down quickly, with heavy impacts sometimes, makes me reluctant to invest via an intitution outside our old continent … anyway, just my opinion.
How come you only focused on SQ and IB; i.e., where you’d position Degiro in your investment equation/strategy?
I read your reviews on Degiro, but surprised to read now that you’d use SQ (as a backup) but not Degiro, eventhough the former’s fees are drastically higher than the latter.
Best,
Hi,
Thanks :)
They are high, but if you compare with other brokers within Switzerland, only FlowBank is cheaper than SQ. So, I would not say that SQ is crazily high.
I am not “only focused on SQ and IB”. I think SQ is the best Swiss broker while IB is the best foreign broker. So, it makes sense to compare them together.
DEGIRO is strictly worse than IB, so it does not make sense to consider it.
I am thinking in the future in having a broker in Switzerland for diversification. DEGIRO would not offer me any interesting diversification. If I diversify here, it’s for safety in case of foreign troubles. I don’t want to have foreign troubles with DEGIRO.
Thanks for the overview. Very helpful. I’m using both services myself. For European shares i usually go with SQ and for US trades i use IB. For Swing trading, IB is definitively my preferred choice. Costs of SQ are simply too high.
Hi martin,
Thanks for sharing.
Are you using both for security?
Thanks for the comparison Baptiste. I started with Swissquote, I still have an account there. But I make all my new investments through IB.
Hi Dror
Thanks for sharing :)
At some point, I think it makes sense to keep two brokers. I am thinking of doing that in the future and transfer some shares to SQ, but I am not at that point :)
How is early retirement going?
Hello Baptiste, thanks for asking, pretty good.
It would be better if the markets were in good shape. :)
But as a good investors, we know that this is only a phase.
Hi Baptiste, three questions:
1. How should I transfer my ETFs from SQ to IB? I have basically three ETFs, 1 Swiss, 1 World and 1 US for at about 100k CHF. Is it cheaper to sell them on SQ, transfer the money from SQ to IB and buy there again or would you recommend to use the transfer fund option?
2. I have SWDA and CSSPX in my portfolio, both located in Ireland. Does it make sense to buy exact the same ETFs again or should I consider US-based ETFs like VT?
3. Is there a two-factor auth in place at IB?
Thanks in advance, will for sure use your referral link for IB as soon as I make the decision!
Hi Sereros,
1) I would use the share transfer services to make it easier. But it may not be cheaper.
2) I would consider US ETFs to save on dividend taxes
3) Yes, it’s mandatory, based on IBKR Mobile applications
Thanks for thinking about my referral link :)
Thank you for your review, I really enjoy reading them. It‘s great that you also take a look into safety in case of broker default, which is something I too spent quite a bit of time researching.
Regarding investment fees I have a slightly different experience since SQ also charges for stamp duty and exchange fees:
1500.- CHF ETF Leader with SQ: 9.- fixed fee + 0.85 real time snapshot (seems to be mandatory…?) + 2.25 stamp duty + 2.- stock exchange fee = 14.10
Same transaction with IB: 3.61
If one puts the fees in terms of percentages of the 1500.- CHF investment there is a big difference between the two:
SQ: 0.94% fee
IB: 0.24% fee
Cheers!
Hi Bearfall,
That’s a good point, I need to take stamp duty into account. I have not paid this fee in a long time and almost forgot about it!
Normally, the real time snapshot should not be mandatory.
2 CHF stock exchange fee does add a lot to 9 CHF base! Thanks!
I will update the article in the coming days.
Hi! Thank you for your blog! I have learned a lot! I am a complete newbie in investment and I have 2 questions. First, How much will be the minimum amount of money you will recommend for starting to invest? Namely, should we first save an X amount of money before thinking on starting to invest it?
Second, how will you start? Using a robot advisor or going directly into a broker like IB?
Thanks!
Hi Lila,
I don’t think there is a minimum. The problem is that fees for very small investments are expensive. If you have 1000 CHF to start, I already think it’s worth it. The important thing is to start so that you get used to it.
As for robo-advisor vs IB, it’s up to you to decide. There are some good robo-advisors. A robo advisor will always be more expensive than investing by yourself if you do it right. But you will need to learn more things if you are investing by yourself and there are more manual steps. So, it depends on how involved you want to be.
Thanks a lot! Do you recommend any resources to start to learn how to invest by your self?. I read your book about early retirement, but that’s all the knowledge I have. I need more on the practical details of investing.
Thanks.
Hi Lila,
I have an article on how to start investing by yourself. Let me know if something is missing from it.