The new Saving Plan offer from Swissquote makes it easy to invest small amounts of money with savings plans. Arjeta Haskaj, who is responsible for the new product, answers the most important questions in this interview.
How does Saving Plan work?
Arjeta Haskaj: Saving Plan is a personal savings plan that also lets customers invest smaller amounts (fractional shares) in stocks, ETFs, cryptocurrencies, or our themed investment portfolios. It is a solution for making fractional investments.
The savings plan can be set up with just a few clicks. The customer defines the amount to invest. They also choose how frequently recurring investments should be made, such as every week or every month.
What are the advantages of using your Savings Plan?
Customers can invest in a broad palette of assets even if they only want to invest small amounts of money. That makes it much easier to create a diversified portfolio.
This innovation is Swissquote’s response to the growing demand for flexible and affordable investment solutions that enable you to build a diversified investment portfolio – regardless of the size of recurring investments.
When buying stocks, for example, you are no longer limited to buying a minimum of one whole share at the going price. Instead, you can simply invest the amount of capital that you have available.
This offer is unique in the market because it combines fractional trading with a very extensive selection of investment vehicles.
How exactly does Swissquote’s fractional trading work?
From a legal perspective, Swissquote, as a fiduciary, holds the shares in the name of customers who have fractional shares.
But once customer accumulates enough fractional shares in a certain stock to comprise a whole share, then the ownership is converted from a promissory right to standard share ownership. All of this happens automatically within the same account. This service is unique in Switzerland.
A concrete example: You can buy fractional shares in Lindt's A stock – a stock that currently costs more than 100,000 francs per share – at regular intervals, until you eventually own a complete share. The advantage is that you will receive proportionate dividends in the meantime, among other benefits.
What does Swissquote’s Savings Plan cost?
We want to encourage people to regularly invest smaller amounts. For that reason, we have reduced out transaction costs to a minimum. Fees begin at 3 francs per trade for all Swiss, US, German, and British stocks, and for the most important ETFs.
How can I activate a savings plan on Swissquote’s online platform?
The process is very simple. Just go to your account settings and select the fractional trading option under the trading mask tab. After you have activated this feature, you will be given the option of creating a savings plan every time you make a trade. If you choose to set up a savings plan, you can select the amount and the intervals. The requirement, of course, is that the investment product in question is eligible for the Saving Plan.
More on this topic:
Swissquote Saving Plan
