VIAC vs Finpension 3a – Which is the best third pillar for 2025?

We start by comparing the investing strategies of VIAC vs Finpension 3a.

Both third pillars invest in mutual funds. They do not use ETFs because pension companies can access much better funds than private investors. Therefore, they can access funds with close to zero (or even zero) TER. So, it is an excellent reason to invest in mutual funds instead of ETFs.

Both companies invest in passive mutual funds. These funds are index funds that minimize costs and try to replicate the market’s performance. Once again, this is a great thing.

Finpension 3a and VIAC let you choose between Credit Suisse and Swisscanto index funds. On top of that, Finpension 3a also provides you with access to UBS, making it a small advantage for Finpension.

Both companies let you invest up to 99% in stocks.

Both companies differ in what they do with the money not invested in stocks. At Finpension, only 1% is kept in cash. The rest is invested in bonds. With VIAC, you can decide between keeping it in bonds or cash. Some people dislike bonds because they yield negative interest for a few years. However, bonds are currently earning more than cash again, so it is a matter of timing. Nevertheless, it is good that VIAC lets you hold cash should you wish to. However, with Finpension, you can invest in a money market fund. A money market fund is similar to cash and would yield the same.

Both companies let you do a 100% cash 3a. For people that do not want to invest right now, this is a great option. Finpension currently offers 0.11% (as of December 2024) on cash accounts.

Overall, both third pillar providers have a great investing strategy! But Finpension 3a is better for investors.

Looking at what advanced investors can do with custom strategies is always good. So, we compare VIAC vs Finpension 3a on that point.

Both third pillars let you choose a custom strategy.

With VIAC, there are some limits to what you can do with a custom strategy:

• You can only invest up to 90% in Swiss Stocks.
• VIAC will prevent you from having too much in a single company (this impacts only the SMI)
• They will prevent having more than 20% in Emerging Markets.

These limitations are not that bad. All the other limitations make sense, and I would not want to overcome them. Until August 2024, VIAC was limited the foreign exposure limit to 60%, but this limit is now gone.

With Finpension 3a, you also have some limits:

• Maximum of 20% in precious metals
• Maximum of 50% in Real Estate

And that is about it for the limits. You can have 99% in foreign currencies (1% needs to stay in cash). And you can have 99% in a single World fund, for instance.

And you can even optimize for having 0% TER:

So, Finpension 3a is significantly more flexible regarding custom investing strategies than VIAC. But VIAC still offers great custom strategies. It is still worth mentioning that it took VIAC three years to reach the level of Finpension 3a.

In the long term, it is essential to consider the investing fees. You will pay these fees for a very long time. And you will pay regardless of the market conditions. So, we need to compare the fees of VIAC vs Finpension 3a.

VIAC charges a base administration fee of 0.52% on the invested assets, with a total administration fee cap of 0.40%. You also pay some fees for the funds themselves.

So, the fees will depend on which strategy you are using. Using the standard Global 100 portfolio (99% in stocks, globally diversified), you will pay 0.41% in fees per year.

You also pay fees for currency conversion, which are 0.75% per conversion. However, this is optimized by netting conversions together. VIAC estimates the annual average to be 0.05%. It is difficult to say if this is accurate. I think it is likely to be slightly higher.

Finally, the index funds used by VIAC also have some subscription and redemption fees. These are almost negligible in the long term since you only buy and sell once, so we can ignore them for now.

This gives a fee of about 0.46% per year for a fully invested and well-diversified portfolio at VIAC.

We can examine Finpension 3a now. The base fee is 0.39% annually and includes VAT and product costs.

Finally, the funds also have some subscription and redemption fees, just like for VIAC. They are mostly using the same funds. The foreign exchange fee is 0.05%. With netting, this will be negligible on average.

This gives us a total fee of about 0.39% for Finpension 3a for an excellent portfolio.

When we compare VIAC vs Finpension 3a, Finpension 3a is cheaper than VIAC. You may think this is not a significant difference, but a 0.39% fee is about 5% cheaper than a 0.41% fee!

There is another advantage to Finpension 3a: its tax domicile. If you are withdrawing your third pillar abroad if you have left Switzerland, the tax domicile of the pension will be important for the taxes. Finpension 3a is domiciled in Schwyz, the canton with the lowest taxes for pension withdrawals! This could make a significant difference for people withdrawing from outside Switzerland.

On top of that, you can save money on fees with both products by recommending the service to friends and families.

If you have 100’000 CHF in your third pillar, you will save 20 CHF per year with Finpension 3a.

Both of these third pillars have some extra fees that we should also consider.

First, VIAC will charge you 300 CHF if you withdraw your third pillar to buy a house.

Finpension will charge 250 CHF for a withdrawal and 200 CHF for a pledge for real estate, which is slightly cheaper than VIAC.

However, Finpension has some extra fees. If you transfer your 3a out of Finpension less than a year after creating it, you will pay 150 CHF. And if you withdraw abroad, you will pay 250 CHF (750 CHF if that happens during your first year).

So, overall, VIAC has a slight advantage for extra fees since they do not charge any fees for withdrawing abroad. However, Finpension 3a is slightly cheaper for withdrawing for real estate.

We can also look at the extra features that these two great services offer. It is pretty simple, since only VIAC has an extra feature, and it is the only one.

Indeed, VIAC started offering life or disability insurance in its package. For each 10’000 CHF invested in securities, you will get free protection of 2500 CHF. You have to choose yourself if you want life or disability insurance. You cannot choose both.

We should try to quantify the value of such insurance. In Switzerland, men have a 6% chance of dying before retirement as of 2021. If you have 100’000 CHF invested in your portfolio, you get 25’000 CHF insurance. Based on the probability of dying before retirement, we can put a value of 1500 CHF for your investments’ entire duration.

If you invest for 30 years, you will get a life insurance value of:

• 50 CHF per year if you invest 100’000 CHF in your third pillar
• 100 CHF per year if you invest 200’0000 CHF in your third pillar
• 200 CHF per year if you invest 400’000 CHF in your third pillar

For disability, about 2% of people in Switzerland are concerned with disability insurance as of 2021. So, we will take 2% as the probability of being disabled.

If you invest for 30 years, you will get a life insurance value of:

• 16.66 CHF per year if you invest 100’000 CHF in your third pillar
• 33.33 CHF per year if you invest 200’0000 CHF in your third pillar
• 66.66 CHF per year if you invest 400’000 CHF in your third pillar

These are only rough estimates. But you need a lot of money invested for this insurance to be interesting. And even then, the amounts are relatively low. I prefer paying lower fees and being optimistic. But, for people already customers of VIAC, it is an attractive, although minimal, advantage.

We should compare the security of VIAC vs Finpension 3a.

Both applications are technically secure, and both companies have a strong security record. I have not heard of any leaks or breaches in these two companies.

With Finpension 3a, you can configure the second factor of authentication (SMS or a good authenticator). This helps with security since this will require your phone. This is better than VIAC (only SMS second factor). However, you cannot do much from these two applications since the money is blocked until you can use it.

Both services let you identify yourself with your identity documents. This makes sure that nobody can open an account in your name. At Finpension, you can choose to do that while it is mandatory at VIAC.

From a safety point of view, both third pillars are equivalent. VIAC and Finpension 3a manage the assets, but they are held in a pension foundation’s balance sheets. The assets are saved in a custody bank in both cases. So, in cases of VIAC or Finpension 3a going bankrupt, the foundation must find a new manager.

Overall, I feel like the security of both third pillars is good. But Finpension 3a has the advantage of a true second factor of authentication. So, I would say Finpension 3a is very slightly safer.

Finally, we look at the reputation of VIAC vs Finpension 3a.

Both companies are young, and finding many reviews about them is challenging. I have never heard any public bad news about either of them. And both companies seem to have an excellent reputation.

VIAC has 82 reviews on Google and got an average score of 5 out of 5 stars. It is a really impressive score. There are only two reviews with less than five stars, and none point out a real issue. Now, most reviews are advertising codes for their referral programs. So, I would probably not pay attention to most of these reviews.

On the App Store, VIAC got 152 notes and an average score of 4.7 out of 5 stars. On the Play Store, VIAC got 239 reviews for an average 4.8 out of 5 stars.

Finpension 3a has no reviews on Google. They have ten reviews on the Play Store with an average score of 5 out of 5. And they have no reviews on the App Store.

Both companies have the same good reputation. VIAC has slightly more experience with third pillars. But Finpension has more experience with second pillars (1e and vested benefits). So, overall, I have high trust in both of them!

I do not care about the applications, especially for the third pillar. It is unimportant because you rarely use it and have to do very little with it.

But some people consider this essential. I would much rather invest in a terrible app (with good security!) and low fees than in a beautiful app with higher fees. However it is up to you to decide what you want to prioritize.  So, we compare VIAC vs Finpension 3a in terms of their applications.

VIAC offers a mobile and a web application. Both applications are pretty good. They look good and are very easy to use. They did a great job of polishing them.

Finpension 3a is also available as a mobile application and a web application. The mobile application could use some extra polishing, and VIAC is a little better.

On the criteria of applications, VIAC is slightly better than Finpension 3a. Their mobile application feels a little better, but nothing significant.

We can draw a table summary of our findings:

Best Third Pillar!	Good Third Pillar
Finpension 3a	VIAC
5.0	4.5
Invest 99% in stocks Leads the innovation Great investing strategy Outstanding fees Great customization	Invest 99% in stocks Great investing strategy Good fees
Does not let you invest in cash	Not great for aggressive investors
0.44	0.50
Good	Good
Use the FEYKV5 code	Invest Now

Best Third Pillar!

Finpension 3a

5.0

• Invest 99% in stocks
• Leads the innovation
• Great investing strategy
• Outstanding fees
• Great customization

• Does not let you invest in cash

0.44

Good

Use the FEYKV5 code

Good Third Pillar

VIAC

4.5

• Invest 99% in stocks
• Great investing strategy
• Good fees

• Not great for aggressive investors

0.50

Good

Invest Now

We can draw a few conclusions from this summary:

• Finpension 3a is better for aggressive investors
• Better expected returns in the long term with Finpension 3a
• Both offer 100% cash 3a
• Finpension 3a is leading the innovation and VIAC is following
• VIAC applications are a little more polished than Finpension 3a
• VIAC offers life or disability insurance coverage