Yes, you can also create your own strategy at index level. To do this, choose the investment focus “individual strategy”.
In the case of a payout as a result of home ownership promotion, it is possible to withdraw the total assets or conduct only a partial withdrawal.
Exception: Insured persons over the age of 50 may withdraw the total of the vested benefits they had on their 50th birthday or half of their current vested benefits. The higher of the two amounts may be withdrawn.
No, voluntary contributions to the vested benefits account are not permitted. Only Pillar 2 funds that are already tied up can be transferred to the vested benefits account – these funds come from a pension fund, a vested benefits account or a vested benefits insurance policy.
No, there are no wealth, income or withholding taxes during the term. Your vested benefits assets are only taxed at a reduced rate when they are withdrawn.
Yes, under the law on vested benefits, you are obliged to transfer all your vested benefits to the pension fund of your new employer.
You can withdraw your vested benefits account in accordance with the statutory regulations. The most important reasons for withdrawal are:
As soon as you are accepted into a pension fund (e.g. resumption of employment), you are obliged to transfer the entire existing pension assets to the new pension fund. In addition, a transfer to another vested benefits foundation is possible at any time.
Since your vested benefits account serves for pension provision, you can only withdraw money in a few exceptional cases regulated by law. This long-term nature makes it suitable for investments in securities (assuming an investment horizon of 5-10 years). In this way, you benefit from higher earnings opportunities compared to the pure account solution. At the same time, an investment in real values, i. e. equities and real estate, provides a certain degree of protection against inflation. With a pure account solution you are completely exposed to this risk. Inflation expectations are currently around 2.0%, which is already higher than the interest rates of many providers.
In order to benefit from higher earnings opportunities, you have to accept certain price fluctuations. In addition to the interest-bearing account, we offer a variety of strategies with a small equity component (strategy 20), which are exposed to smaller fluctuations, up to pure equity strategies (strategy 100), which are exposed to larger fluctuations.
Download our app or register using your computer, answer 6 simple questions and find out which investment type you are. Your investment type will then tell you which strategy suits you best. If we find out from your answers that you don’t want to see fluctuations or that you have too short an investment horizon (e.g. because you want to withdraw your retirement assets for owner-occupied residential property in the next few years), we recommend a pure account solution with no fluctuations. Of course, you can override the investment proposal at any time. It’s very simple, just try it yourself!
Interest that is credited at the end of a certain period increases the deposit from the beginning of the following period and thus earns interest in the future. In securities investments, the principle of compound interest is even more effective. Your acquired assets generate profits, are reinvested and produce further profit in the following period. The lower the cost, the higher the profits. And the more time you give the compound interest effect, the greater its impact. With VIAC’s extremely cost-effective securities solution, you benefit particularly from the compound interest effect.
If you leave Switzerland permanently and move to a member state of the EU or EFTA where you are still subject to compulsory insurance, it is not possible to pay out the mandatory portion of your vested benefits assets. It therefore remains in the vested benefits account and can be paid out when you reach ordinary AHV/AVS retirement age (earliest 5 years prior to this). You can have the extra-mandatory part paid out when you leave Switzerland.
If you move to a country outside the EU/EFTA, you can withdraw the entire vested benefits assets.
You are not sure whether you are subject to compulsory insurance in your new country of residence? The best way to find out is to contact the BVG Guarantee Fund.
Assets of the mandatory occupational pension scheme, including the vested benefits account, are divided in half in the event of a divorce. However, this only applies to the part that was saved during the marriage.
In the event of death, your vested benefits assets will be transferred to the following beneficiaries – in the order listed:
By using the VIAC Invest product, you enter into a contractual relationship with VIAC Invest Ltd, which is supervised by FINMA as a fund management company. VIAC AG is backed by the three initiators of the VIAC pension solution, who developed the product together with Bank WIR.
No, we do not offer joint relationships. You must be the sole beneficial owner of the assets you invest with VIAC Invest.
Yes, VIAC Invest is very suitable for a savings plan for your children. For example, you can use your child’s name as the portfolio name. The important thing is that the money remains yours and you can dispose of it freely. You are under no obligation to transfer the money to your children.
No. The VIAC Invest product is only available to customers domiciled in Switzerland. If you, as an existing VIAC Invest customer, move your domicile abroad, you are obliged to inform us of the change of address and close your VIAC Invest. There are no closing fees.
Yes, as long as you are domiciled in Switzerland, you can use VIAC Invest. However, we are obliged to request a W9 form from you. IMPORTANT: We do not prepare US-specific tax documents! For this reason, we recommend that you contact a tax advisor before opening.
No. Even after completing the opening process, you have the freedom to decide for yourself at any time whether you want to deposit money or not. You will only be activated as a customer in our system once the first deposit has been credited to your VIAC account. You also pay no fees as long as your money is not invested. There are no account management fees with VIAC Invest.
No, you are not obliged to make a deposit. There is also no minimum contract term. You can delete the product yourself in the application under Profile/Settings if you are not convinced by VIAC Invest.
As part of the onboarding process, several simple questions will help you find the right investment strategy. Each client is assigned a corresponding investment type. Based on this, one of our strategies (account, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100) will be suggested to you. You can override our suggestion at any time.
Very simple: Download the VIAC app or start the opening process at www.viac.ch by clicking on “Register”, have your ID/passport ready and open your VIAC Invest account 100% digitally in less than ten minutes.
Yes, you can also register with an international mobile number. For mobile numbers from countries not directly bordering Switzerland, you must first contact our support team to register them.
Please call us on 0800 80 40 40. After successful identification, we will enter the new number in the system straight away.
No. You can invest your money with our offer from as little as CHF 1.
In principle, any person of legal age domiciled in Switzerland can open VIAC Invest. As soon as you, as a VIAC user, move your domicile abroad, you must inform us of this. In this case, the VIAC Invest product would have to be closed and withdrawn. VIAC Pillar 3a and vested benefits, on the other hand, can also be continued with domicile abroad (exception: domicile USA).
The VIAC Invest fund management company is regulated by FINMA and is subject to money laundering legislation. Accordingly, the VIAC Invest product is subject to stricter regulatory requirements. Pillar 3a and vested benefits are not regulated by FINMA, but by the Basel Foundation Supervisory Authority.
No. Deposits and withdrawals are free of charge on our part.
No. A deposit is only possible in CHF. Our system has nothing to do with the complementary currency WIR. The payout is also always made in CHF.
Yes, you can transfer your money to another vested benefits foundation at any time, subject to notice. It is not possible to transfer this amount to private assets to cover the daily needs of life before reaching the normal retirement age. However, the law provides certain exceptions in which the money can be withdrawn earlier. Early withdrawals are possible, among other things, for purchases of owner-occupied residential property, value-added investments or repayment of the mortgage on owner-occupied residential property. Those who set up their own business or emigrate from Switzerland can also withdraw the money. Under certain conditions, disability may also entitle the holder to claim vested benefits assets early.
After you have completed the opening process, you will enter your personal VIAC Cockpit. There you click on the navigation element “Transfer” and can generate your ready-made transfer order. All you have to do is complete this order with your personal details, sign it and send it to your previous pension fund / vested benefits foundation.
After you have completed the opening process, you will enter your personal VIAC Cockpit. There you click on the navigation element “Transfer” on the left and can generate your ready-made transfer order. All you need to do is print it out, complete it with the details of your existing pension institution and the previous insurance or contract number, sign it and send it to the previous pension fund / vested benefits foundation.
No. Only existing vested benefits assets or assets from the pension fund (2nd pillar) may be transferred.
No. With VIAC, only one vested benefits relationship can be maintained. It is not permitted to manage two accounts with the same vested benefits institution.
If your vested benefits assets are transferred from your previous pension institution (vested benefits foundation or pension fund), this pension institution will send us a withdrawal statement showing the allocation of the mandatory/extra-mandatory assets. When your assets are received, they are parked in your personal transitory account and earn interest. As soon as we can make the allocation on the basis of the withdrawal statement, the transitory account will be closed and your vested benefits assets will be allocated to the “Mandatory” and “Extra-Mandatory” segments. Only after allocation will your vested benefits assets be invested in the selected strategies (a separate strategy can be defined for each segment) with the next weekly Trading. Trading takes place weekly on Tuesdays.
Yes, you can also create your own strategy at index level. To do this, choose the investment focus “individual strategy”.
Yes, in the opening process, you can easily determine your investment type using the VIAC App. On the basis of this, a suitable investment strategy is proposed to you. You have the option of overriding this investment proposal and can choose from all strategies offered – from the account solution to the 100% equity strategy.
Yes, it is our goal to offer an optimal solution for every investment type. Our account is interest-bearing and free of charge. The interest rate is currently 0.30% for 3a and 0.05% for vested benefit assets.
VIAC is a pure self-management platform, so you as a customer must adjust your strategy yourself in the VIAC App or VIAC Web version. To do so, simply click on the tile “Investment strategy” and select “Adjust strategy”. The strategy adjustment is always implemented with the next weekly trading (every Tuesday).
You can adjust your investment strategy at any time in the VIAC App. The effective implementation takes place on the next weekly trading day on the following Tuesday. There are no additional costs in the sense of primary trading costs (brokerage fees). However, each exchange transaction also incurs external ancillary trading costs. These may be spreads (difference between buying and selling price) for index funds/ETF and currencies, or taxes (e.g. stamp duties). We try to keep these external ancillary trading costs as low as possible through intelligent internal netting (see Academy).
Passive funds are particularly useful for long-term investments, as only a few active funds achieve a higher return than their benchmark over the longer term. This is further reinforced by the fact that passive funds cost considerably less than active funds. With the typically long investment horizon in tied pillar 3a, the resulting compound interest effect has a particularly strong impact on the investment performance. You can find out how much this will affect your personal pension plan by using our fee calculator (https://viac.ch/en/products/pillar-3a/fees/).
No. We offer a passive investment with active risk management at very low fees.
The following three reasons trigger a rebalancing:
Passive investment funds (index funds and ETFs) usually depict an index (e.g. SMI for Swiss equities) and try to map its performance as accurately as possible. Since they merely depict the index and do not try to actively beat it, they are also called passive investment products. These are particularly suitable for investors who want to invest in a broadly diversified market with a single transaction at low cost and in the long term.
No. With an investment you are always exposed to the market movements of the stock exchange. If you do not want any fluctuations, you can also open an interest-bearing 3a account with us.
If you don’t want to have any fluctuations in the meantime, you can change your strategy at any time and without additional costs and invest again at a later date. However, we generally recommend a “buy and hold” strategy. Our system will then perform the regular monitoring for you.
In selecting our funds, we have made sure that physically replicating funds are used. Physical replication means that the underlying shares of the index are effectively bought by the index fund or ETF provider. Investment in synthetically replicating products is avoided if possible, as they are exposed to counterparty risk.
Yes, on the VIAC strategy pages for pillar 3a and vested benefits you will find the corresponding factsheet for each investment strategy with historical performance and other information.
No. We are convinced that good diversification, which we offer through our broad-based strategies, is the best way to invest in the long term. An important driver for the performance are the costs, which we want to keep as low as possible for our customers. We can only achieve this through a certain degree of standardization.
No, the fund offering is determined by VIAC and optimized in the best possible way according to costs, taxes, tradability and performance. We monitor market developments on an ongoing basis and try to select the best index funds for our clients at all times.
Yes, each of our strategies also invests abroad. The discussion about foreign currency risks is often very superficial and non-transparent. For example, Nestlé, a Swiss share, generates only about 1% of its sales in Swiss francs. In the risk assessment, however, this share is allocated 100% to the Swiss franc. On the other hand, Apple also generates sales in CHF, but is allocated entirely to the USD.
From our point of view, it is important to create the awareness that foreign currencies are indispensable for an investment. These offer both opportunities and risks. It is also not enough to “hedge” the foreign currencies. What is often ignored is that you pay the interest rate difference between the two currencies for a hedge. Historically, in case of Swiss investors the costs of hedging have exceeded the benefits.
Yes, you can also receive dividends from index funds and ETFs. Some of the index funds and ETFs distribute dividends. In these cases the received money will be credited to your account and reinvested in the next rebalancing if there is a sufficient deviation from your target strategy. However, most index funds are reinvesting funds, which means that the dividends are reinvested in the fund directly after they have been distributed.
Your pension assets are invested globally and diversified. In the standard strategies you participate in the development of more than 2’800 companies worldwide. This clearly minimizes the individual security risk. In addition to the Swiss franc, you are also invested in other currencies, with the US dollar accounting for the largest share of foreign currencies.
For the stock selection in the sustainable fund components, each company is analyzed and rated in the areas of environment, social and governance (ESG). Based on these ESG ratings, only the best companies are considered per sector until a certain threshold of market capitalization is reached. In addition, companies with significant involvement in controversial activities are per se excluded.
More details and specific information on the exclusion criteria can be found in the Academy.
VIAC’s investment strategies cover six different risk types. In addition to the interest-bearing account (no fluctuations), we offer various strategies with a small equity component (strategy 20), which are exposed to smaller fluctuations, up to pure equity strategies (strategy 100), which are exposed to larger fluctuations. The risk profiling helps you to find the right strategy for you. Of course, you can adjust the strategy at any time.
All VIAC strategies are implemented with index funds and ETFs. The main distinguishing feature is trade. In the case of index funds, subscriptions or redemptions take place once a day (primary market and thus exempt from stamp duty), while ETFs (exchange traded funds) are traded directly on the stock exchange (secondary market) and therefore stamp duty is payable. Both index funds and ETFs usually follow an index (e.g. SMI for Swiss equities) and try to replicate its performance as accurately as possible. Since they merely follow the index and do not try to actively beat it, they are also called passive investment products. These passive investment funds are particularly suitable for investors who wish to invest in a broadly diversified market with a single transaction at low cost and in the long term.
Index funds and ETFs are characterized by the following features, among others:
In the case of index funds, we also invest in tax-exempt tranches in the USA as well as Japan and no stamp duty is incurred on trading. For this reason, index funds are primarily or exclusively used in our standard strategies.
The Pension Foundations apply the following selection criteria for the selection of index funds and ETFs:
Your money is invested globally and diversified. By using index funds and ETFs, you can participate in the development of more than 2’800 companies worldwide (standard strategies). The most important asset classes are equities, real estate and gold, whereby the equity component is tailored to your risk profile. You can decide with which fund provider (UBS or Swisscanto) you would like to implement your strategy and whether the strategy should be implemented with or without bonds (interest-bearing and fee-free cash instead of bonds).
Traditional investment funds are often “actively” implemented and try to beat the underlying index (e.g. SMI). However, the active management of assets causes additional expenditure, which is reflected in higher costs. Our strategies, on the other hand, are passively implemented with index funds and ETFs. These reflect the underlying index directly and are correspondingly inexpensive. Our strategies also resemble a modular concept, as several index investments are used for each strategy (per asset class and region). Accordingly, our strategies are only available from VIAC and are not publicly available.
By answering 6 simple questions you will find the right strategy for you. Your willingness to take risks has a major influence. If you don’t like big fluctuations, you will only be offered low-risk strategies. In addition to risk appetite, risk capacity also plays a major role. This is essentially determined by the investment horizon, which is typically very long in the third pillar. For example, a 30-year-old investor can easily sit out a stock market crisis. This is the case since his investment horizon (period of time in which the money is invested) is around 35 years (that is, until retirement).
With the VIAC Account Plus, 95% of pension assets are held in the account at a preferential interest rate of 0.30%/0.05% (3a/vested benefit) per annum. The remaining 5% are invested globally and broadly diversified in equities. There are no custody fees, brokerage fees, administration fees or product costs. With the investment focus Global or Switzerland, product costs are also included. External product costs <0.01% are only incurred for Sustainable implementation.
The corresponding Pension Foundation of Bank WIR is responsible for ensuring that index investments (index funds and ETFs) are selected and used for the benefit of the client. No active asset management is carried out within the strategies.
The client can choose between “Global”, “Switzerland” and “Global Sustainable”. We recommend focusing on “global” in order to keep investment costs as low as possible and spread investment risks as widely as possible. Strategies with investment focus “Switzerland” invest at least 75% in Swiss francs across all asset classes. The “Global Sustainable” focus omits investments in gold as well as companies with significant involvement in controversial activities. Stock selection in the funds is based on accepted sustainability criteria.
Deposits, transfers and strategy changes will be invested or implemented weekly on Tuesdays. If it is a public holiday, the Trading will take place on the next possible trading day. Between Christmas and New Year, there will be no Trading due to limited tradability.
Your portfolio will be reviewed monthly on the first trading day of the month. If necessary, your assets will be returned to the target ratio (more details: Academy).
VIAC focuses on passive implementation by means of index investments (index funds and ETFs) combined with active risk management. In daily operation, our intelligent system monitors each portfolio individually on the basis of the selected strategy. Based on this active monitoring, it automatically triggers buy and sell orders on the first trading day of the month, so that the portfolio corresponds to the selected strategy.
Each customer determines his or her personal strategy in the onboarding process. This defines how the assets are distributed across various asset classes and regions (e.g. 10% equities in Switzerland). As a result of movements in the financial markets, the effective distribution of assets may differ from the defined strategy (in case of well performing equity markets, for example, the Swiss equities share may increase to 12%). The automatic rebalancing checks this deviation once a month on the first trading day of the month and, if necessary, returns the client’s assets to the defined strategy. Deposits, transfers and strategy changes will be invested or implemented weekly.
Rebalancing ensures that asset allocation does not deviate too much from the defined strategy. The portfolio thus always meets the client’s target strategy.
The aim of an investment in securities is always to preserve or increase the assets invested. On the other hand, an investment in the financial markets is always associated with various risks. In this way, the value of the assets can fall or rise. As a rule of thumb, the higher the expected return (the more stocks), the higher the associated risks (the greater the fluctuations). In the implementation process, we strive to minimize the risks for each client, for example, implementation by means of index funds and ETFs is much more broadly based than implementation by means of individual securities.
The most important risks include the following: Price risk, exchange rate risk, counterparty risk, securities lending, interest rate risk and various general economic risks such as inflation, economic activity, geopolitical risks etc.
No. For us, it has always been a central concern to ensure maximum security for pension assets. Thus, there is no connection between the VIAC App and WIR Bank or UBS / ZKB. It is therefore impossible to access the assets of the Pension Foundations via the app. In principle, our solution is safer than any e-banking solution.
As safe as any other bank or pension foundation. You pay every franc directly into the Terzo Pension Foundation or Vested Benefit Foundation of the WIR Bank. The Pension Foundations are independent and responsible for the secure, needs-oriented management of the pension assets of its clients. They have already been entrusted with more than CHF 3.5 billion in client assets.
If the Bank WIR finds itself in financial difficulties, it is the task of the Pension Foundations to take the necessary measures to protect the pension assets of its clients (e.g. this may result in a change of custodian bank). With the bankruptcy privilege, your account assets up to CHF 100’000 will be given preferential treatment in the event of bankruptcy of the account-holding bank. Securities are held at UBS or ZKB. Privileged assets end up in bankruptcy class 2. In addition, the custodian bank must hold domestic receivables or other assets located in Switzerland (usually mortgages) to the extent of 125% of its privileged assets. Securities (including our index funds) are regarded as special assets and do not fall into bankruptcy assets in the event of the custodian bank’s insolvency. More information can be found at: Esisuisse
The VIAC app runs in the same high-security zone as the e-Banking from various Swiss banks. Access to the VIAC App is protected by your personal password. Already during the registration process we support you in creating a secure password. As soon as you want to make substantial changes, we will send you a code via SMS for maximum security, which you have to enter for confirmation.
The VIAC app runs in the same high-security zone as the e-Banking from various Swiss banks.
No, the cash assets of all Pillar 3a and vested benefit foundations are only privileged in the event of the custodian bank’s bankruptcy. The privilege means that the assets are to be allocated to the second bankruptcy class. Your money, which is not invested in securities, is managed by WIR Bank, a purely Swiss and cooperative institution. With the bankruptcy privilege, cash assets of up to CHF 100’000 per client are given preferential treatment in the event of bankruptcy of the account-holding bank. Privileged assets end up in bankruptcy class 2. In addition, the custodian bank must hold domestic receivables or other assets located in Switzerland (usually mortgages) to the extent of 125% of its privileged assets. Securities are held at UBS or ZKB. Securities are regarded as special assets, are protected in the event of the custodian bank’s insolvency and are not included in the bank’s bankruptcy assets. More information can be found at: Esisuisse
There is no immediate danger, as the thief cannot log in without a password and cannot change anything accordingly. An e-mail for a password reset is also sent only after successful identification. Money withdrawals via app are not possible. We recommend that you contact your mobile phone provider to block your mobile number and avoid any costs.
Your money is at the Terzo Pension Foundation of the WIR Bank or at the Vested Benefits Foundation of WIR Bank. The cash portion is held in the Pension Foundation’s interest-bearing collective account. UBS or ZKB act as custodian banks for securities within the Terzo Pension Foundation. Your money will be kept safe in Switzerland. Incidentally, the cash portion of your pension assets enjoys a bankruptcy privilege (max. CHF 100’000 per client) in the event of bankruptcy of the bank. Privileged assets end up in bankruptcy class 2. In addition, the custodian bank must hold domestic receivables or other assets located in Switzerland (usually mortgages) to the extent of 125% of its privileged assets. More information can be found at: www.esisuisse.ch
No. The custodian bank’s custody fees are already included in the VIAC administration fee of 0.52% p.a. (at most 0.40% p.a. due to the fee cap).
No. Only in case of an early withdrawal in the context of home ownership promotion, a fee of CHF 300 will be charged unless the financing is provided by WIR Bank. All other closings or early withdrawals are free of charge.
No, you don’t pay an administration fee on the cash part. The administration fee of 0.52% (at most 0.40% p.a. due to the fee cap) is only charged on the invested portion of your pension assets.
No, none of the companies receive any kind of refunds, commissions or retrocessions.
Yes, usually there is a fee. Our goal though is to keep any foreign currency exchange as little as possible through VIAC’s intelligent calculation system. Thus, in the best case, the fee is at 0% when the purchases and sales of foreign currencies during rebalancing cancel each other out across all customers.
Should the purchase and sale volumes not be identical, the foreign currency fee is only charged on the difference that is actually traded – more information on the settlement system can be found here: Academy. The resulting costs are then distributed proportionately among all customer orders.
Experience shows that, depending on the strategy, one-off costs of a maximum of 0.20% (e.g. Global 100) could occur. Here an example: 60% foreign currency share x 0.3%, whereby the 0.3% corresponds to the effective optimized foreign currency fees for the months June, July and August 2020. Without internal settlement or optimization which VIAC carries out in the interest of its customers, the premium charged by the Bank would be 0.75%. Therefore we pass on 100% of all cost advantages directly to our customers.
Historically and over the long term, the annual average cost of all strategies is less than 0.05%. With other providers, these fees are usually hidden and not disclosed to the customer. They are for instance not included in the TER of a fund. Hence the name “Total Expense Ratio” is misleading as foreign currency hedges, which cause recurring / running costs are also not included in the TER. However, especially in long-term pension plans, such recurring costs are much more important than a one-off fee for the foreign currency exchange.
The VIAC management fee is calculated monthly on the basis of the average invested assets. No fee will be deducted from the amount in cash. The fee will be debited from your retirement savings account at the beginning of the following month. This does not require the sale of shares in index funds or ETFs, since part of the pension assets is always held in the interest-bearing cash account.
The VIAC administration fee is 0.52% per annum (at most 0.40% p.a. due to the fee cap) on the invested pension assets. There is no administration fee on the cash portion. The administration fee covers the trading costs and the fees paid by the custodian bank for cash account and custody account management. This fee also includes all foundation administration fees, technology deployment and support. There are no transaction costs, retrocessions or other commissions.
Click on the function element “Documents” in the top right menu. Under “Transaction documents” you will find all charges. You can also find them by clicking on the transactions overview of the respective portfolio/segment.
In case of the index funds and ETFs used, costs of 0.01% on average per year (standard strategies) are incurred within the funds. These product costs are included directly in the index fund or ETF prices. Including the administration fee of 0.52% (at most 0.40% p.a. due to the fee cap), the total costs for a fully invested strategy are less than 0.44%. As a result, our product is up to 3 times cheaper than comparable competitor products.
No, this is not possible. One of the reasons for this is that the Vested Benefits Foundation can invest in special and extremely favourable index fund tranches. These cannot be invested by private individuals. As a result, you benefit from much lower fees during the savings period. If you want to invest in broadly diversified funds at low cost after you retire, we recommend VIAC Invest.
Yes, this is possible at any time subject to notice. However, we do not transfer any securities; the transfer is always carried out as a bank transfer in CHF.
No. Vested benefits must be withdrawn no later than 5 years after reaching AHV retirement age.
Under “Settings” in the top right menu you can trigger the closing of your vested benefit relation. Security investments will be sold on the next possible Trading Day. After concluding the process you will receive a closing order by e-mail. Once we receive your signed closing order, your assets will be transferred. According to the notice periods, this can take up to 36 days – but in general, the transfer takes place immediately after the sale and booking of the securities.
Please send the closing order to the following address: Vsted benefit foundation of Bank WIR, Team VIAC, Auberg 1, 4002 Basel or by eMail to support@viac.ch.
Should you wish to transfer your VIAC vested benefits account to another pension foundation, please select “Transfer to new pension fund” as closing reason in the app and then send us a signed transfer order (payment slip) from the beneficiary pension fund.
No, this is not possible. If a withdrawal is made, the entire account is paid out in a single payment. An annuity is not offered.
The notice period is in principle 31 days, but in general the funds are transferred immediately after the sale of the securities. The sale of the securities takes place on the next trading day, taking into account a processing period of 5 working days. If your assets are already in cash, the payment can be executed even faster.
Normally, the money cannot be drawn until at least 5 years before reaching the normal AHV age.
Early withdrawals are possible, among other things, for purchases of owner-occupied residential property, for investments that serve the purpose of housing or for the repayment of the mortgage on owner-occupied residential property. Those who set up their own business or emigrate from Switzerland can also withdraw the money. Under certain conditions, disability may also entitle the holder to claim the vested benefits early.