VZ 3a Review 2025 – Pros & Cons
| Updated: |(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links)
Vermögenszentrum (VZ) is a Swiss financial service provider in Switzerland. They provide advice and services to many people in Switzerland, helping them with their retirement planning, for instance. It is not a truly independent service company, since they have they own products, including a third pillar: VZ 3a.
In this article, I want to review the VZ 3a to see how good it is. We will look at the advantages and disadvantages of this third pillar. By the end of the article, you will know whether you should use this third pillar or 3a.
Total Fee | 0.98% per year |
---|---|
Maximum portfolios | 1 |
Stock allocation | Up to 97% |
Maximum foreign exposure | 60% |
Maximum investment in cash | 0% |
Investment Strategy | ETFs and Stocks |
Fund providers | Not shared |
Languages | English, French, German, and Italian |
Sustainable option | No |
Mobile Application | Yes |
Web Application | Yes |
Custodian Bank | VZ |
Customers | 25’000 |
Established | 2010 |
Foundation’s domicile | Zürich |
Vermögenszentrum (VZ)
If you do not know them, Vermögenszentrum (VZ) is a popular financial service advisor and provider. They provide advice to people with financial questions such as:
- How to save money for a house
- How to plan their retirement
- How to fund a company
Overall, they are quite professional and they have generally relatively good advice. However, they can be quite expensive. I know someone in my family that paid more than 2000 CHF for a retirement plan.
On top of that, they also provide multiple financial services. For instance, they have their own third pillar, which we will cover in this article. But they also have a vested benefits account, a brokerage account and even a pension fund.
This brings out a problem about VZ for their financial advice: VZ is independent. Since they are providing financial services and financial advice, they already have a conflict of interest. This is a problem with most financial advisors. This does not impact the quality of the VZ 3a, but I thought it was important to mention.
VZ 3a Investment Strategy
Now that we have covered VZ, we can focus on the VZ 3a. First, it is essential to look at the investment strategy.
Interestingly, VZ has two different investing strategies:
- Pillar 3a with ETFs
- Pillar 3a with individual stocks
The first strategy is quite common. VZ 3a will invest your money in ETFs, following a portfolio based on your risk tolerance. You will be asked the standard questions about your financial situation and risk capacity to establish your level of aggressiveness. From this, they will use one of six strategies, ranging from 15% to 97% in stocks. They will use some hedging because they only allow 60% in foreign currency exposure.
This strategy is quite common, but there are multiple issues:
- Since they use ETFs, they cannot reclaim the US dividends lost to tax withholding. So, this will incur a 15% loss on US dividends. This is about a 0.15% extra fee on your assets.
- They do not share the available strategies online. This is a lack of transparency since we cannot see the ETFs before opening an account.
- Many alternatives allow up to 99% in stocks, against 97% for VZ 3a.
- Many alternatives allow 100% in foreign currency exposure, against 60% for VZ 3a.
The second strategy is less common. Indeed, there are very few third pillars with individual stocks in Switzerland. However, even though this strategy is called individual stocks, it also contains ETFs. Indeed, this strategy invests in the 20 largest Swiss stocks (SMI). For diversification, they then also invest in ETFs to complete the portfolio. The only advantage of this strategy is that you will slightly lower fees since the Swiss part of the portfolio is covered by stocks without any TER. Other than, it has the same issues outlined for the first strategy.
Overall, VZ 3a investing strategy is not bad, but not particularly good either. It does not offer anything unique.
VZ 3a fees
After covering the strategy, it is very important to look at the investing fees. Indeed, if we compare two offers with similar strategies, the fees are going to make the most difference in the long term.
The fees of VZ 3a are quite straightforward. You will pay a management fee of 0.68% on your assets. And there is no degressive system, so that is what you are going to pay regardless of your money.
On top of that, you must also the fees of the ETFs. VZ says the average TER of the ETFs they are using is 0.15%.
So, overall, you will pay a 0.83% fee on your assets with VZ 3a. This is not bad, but again, not particularly good either. There are many alternatives with cheaper fees than this.
And we should not forget about the wasted US dividends, which adds about 0.15% to the total fees. This brings up the total to 0.98% which is not very interesting anymore.
Open a VZ 3a account
Opening a VZ 3a account is not as simple as it could be. There is no way to open an account entirely online. Instead, you will have to register online on a form, and then they will send you additional information and call you for the rest of the procedure.
Many third pillars can be created online these days or from a single app on a phone. So, having to fill up a form and wait to receive information is too antiquated. They should really make this process simpler.
Security
If you trust any amount of money to a financial service provider, you want it to be secure. So, we must look at VZ 3a security.
The assets in each third pillar in Switzerland are protected in the same way. The structure is decoupled from VZ itself, through a foundation, a separate legal entity. And VZ itself is only the fund manager of the assets. If VZ was to go bankrupt, the foundation would find a new asset manager for the funds. In that regard, there is nothing wrong with VZ 3a.
From a technical perspective, I could not find anything wrong with VZ. I did not find any report of a breach with VZ. When using their financial portal, you will use your phone as a second factor of authentication. The only thing I wish is that they would share extra information about security.
And talking about security, it is important to remind you that the most insecure part in any computer system is the user. So, please take your online security seriously.
Alternatives
It is essential to always compare a financial product to the alternatives before choosing it. I will only pick two alternatives, but there are many available solutions.
VZ 3a vs Finpension 3a
Finpension 3a is the best third pillar in Switzerland.
Use the FEYKV5 code to get a fee credit of 25 CHF!
- Invest 99% in stocks
First, we should compare VZ 3a with the third pillar I consider the best in Switzerland, Finpension 3a.
Finpension 3a will use retirement-grade index funds. These funds allow to not lose the dividends from US stocks. On the other hand, VZ 3a uses ETFs, meaning we lose on these dividends. Additionally, Finpension 3a allows 99% in stocks and 99% in foreign currency, while VZ 3a is limited to 97% and 60%. All of this will give significantly better returns to Finpension 3a.
On top of these advantages, Finpension 3a total fees are about 0.39%, compared to 0.98% for VZ 3a. This makes Finpension 3a more than twice cheaper than VZ 3a.
Finally, you can open a Finpension 3a directly from the app, significantly easier than VZ 3a.
Overall, Finpension 3a is much better than VZ 3a.
VZ 3a vs True Wealth 3a
It is also interesting to compare VZ 3a with True Wealth 3a.
True Wealth 3a started with ETFs like VZ 3a, but switched to retirement index funds to save on US dividend withholding. This makes True Wealth 3a more efficient than VZ 3a.
True Wealth 3a is also much cheaper than VZ 3a, at 0.20% per year, against 0.98% per year. This fee makes True Wealth 3a five times cheaper than VZ 3a. And you can also open an account online with True Wealth 3a, while it is not possible with VZ.
Overall, True Wealth 3a is much better than VZ 3a.
If you want further information, you can read my review of True Wealth 3a.
VZ 3a FAQ
How much can you invest in foreign currency with VZ 3a?
You can invest up to 60% in foreign currencies with VZ 3a.
Who is VZ 3a not good for?
VZ 3a is not great if you want to optimize your fees or invest very aggressively in your 3a.
Who is VZ 3a good for?
VZ 3a is good if you really want to only use VZ products.
Is VZ 3a efficient with US dividends?
No, they do not use retirement-grade funds nor US ETFs. So 15% of US dividends are lost.
VZ 3a Summary
VZ 3a

VZ 3a is a third pillar by the popular VZ company, a financial service provider and advisor. Is it any good? We find out in this in-depth review.
Product Brand: VZ
3
Pros
- Good security
- Access from the computer and smartphone
Cons
- Fees are not great
- Not efficient with US dividends
- Not transparent
- Limited exposure to foreign currency
- Not as independent as they claim
- Cannot open account online
Conclusion
Overall, VZ 3a is not a particularly appealing third pillar account. There are multiple better alternatives available. VZ 3a has several disadvantages over the alternatives:
- They are significantly pricier.
- They are allowing a lower allocation to stocks.
- They are not flexible for foreign currency allocation.
Moreover, they are also not very practical to open accounts with because you cannot fully open an account online. And you also cannot find the used portfolios on their website. This lack of transparency does not inspire trust.
Overall, I would not recommend VZ 3a, there are simply much better alternatives available.
If you are searching for a third pillar account, you can look at the best third pillar accounts in Switzerland.
What about you? What do you think about VZ 3a?
Recommended reading
- More articles about Best retirement accounts
- More articles about Retirement
- Yuh 3a Review 2025 – Pros & Cons
- Finpension 3a Review 2025: Pros & Cons
- Interview of Beat Bühlmann – CEO of finpension
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Thanks for the article, interesting.
One question, why is the 15% withholding lost with ETFs?
Hi David,
The US tax office (IRS) withhold some dividend at source. Depending on where the country is located, this withholding is different. Most ETFs are from Ireland and they get a 15% withholding rate. Since the IRS does not know who owns the ETFs (the ownership is indirect), you cannot reclaim the 15% so it’s lost.
If you use a US ETF, you are the direct owner of the dividends and the dividends are withheld from you and you can reclaim them. The final result is that we lose 0% of the dividends.
Hi, Baptiste,
another investing company with interesting & competent analyses via their newsletters and pdf-infos is
Hinder Asset Management, Zürich,
https://www.hinder-asset.ch/
, who invest their customer’s funds via ETFs (with tactical rebalancings, however). Anyway, they seem competent to me. Maybe expensive on the fee side?, I suppose, but I don’t know.
bye,
FrankieS
Hi Frankie
The problem is that they basically share no information on their website. And it’s only in German, I usually don’t review services like this.
Thanks for the review, Baptiste!
Small typo ;) “Overall, I would recommend VZ 3a”
Thanks, Arnout. This is not a small typo :P I fixed it.
i just wanted to mention (no advertizing,
no affiliation). the newsletters are interesting (as with VZ).
I like very much the ETF approach of the company, as I assume, they only use ETFs.
I do not like the ‘active ETF indexing’ approach of the company, of course, and possibly also not their fees.
No problem. Their newsletter is good (I read it). And the approach they recommend on their website is quite good advice.
Thank You for the detailed analysis of
their services.
What I can say: I love their general written & email newsletter, where many important topics are covered in a client centered approach, without advertizing much there own services.
Hi FrankieS,
You are welcome.
Their email newsletter is quite decent indeed. But that does not mean their products are the best :)
100 % truth.
Thank you for an interesting article. I receive VZ’s newsletter so I always wondered out of curiosity where they stand on 3A accounts compared to competitors. Concise and pertinent summary – Thank You !
Thanks, I am glad you liked it!