Swissquote Review 2020

Swissquote doesn't charge an inactivity fee and you can trade an impressive selection of funds for favorable fees. On the other hand, trading fees are generally high, including for stocks and ETFs, and there is a fee for withdrawing your money.

We ranked Swissquote's fee levels as low, average or high based on how they compare to those of all reviewed brokers.

To get things rolling, let's go over some lingo related to broker fees. What you need to keep an eye on are trading fees and non-trading fees.

• Trading fees occur when you trade. These can be commissions, spreads, financing rates and conversion fees.
• Non-trading fees include charges not directly related to trading, like withdrawal fees or inactivity fees.

In the sections below, you will find the most relevant fees of Swissquote for each asset class. For example, in the case of stock investments the most important fees are commissions.

We also compared Swissquote's fees with those of two similar brokers we selected, Saxo Bank and Degiro. This selection is based on objective factors such as products offered, client profile, fee structure, etc. See a more detailed rundown of Swissquote alternatives.

To have a clear overview of Swissquote, let's start with the trading fees.

Swissquote trading fees

Swissquote's trading fees are high. We recommend Swissquote if you want high-quality service and are willing to pay a higher price for it. If you prefer lower costs, there are discount brokers out there that are likely better options for you.

Swissquote's fee calculation is transparent. As a default, the pricing structure is volume-based, which means the higher the volume, the less fees you pay. You can, however, change the pricing structure to a fixed-rate plan, where you can pre-purchase a set amount of trades for a flat price. In this review, we calculated using the volume-based fee structure.

Stock fees and ETF fees

Swissquote has high stock and ETF commissions. Prices are far higher than the average fees of some competitor brokers in the same league and significantly higher than discount brokers' commissions.

The stock trading fee calculation is volume-based and transparent. Let's have a quick overview of trading fee terms for the US, UK, Germany, Japan, and Hong Kong: 

If you prefer stock trading on margin or short sale, you should check Swissquote's financing rates.

Financing rates or margin rate is charged when you trade on margin or short a stock. This basically means that you borrow money or stocks from your broker to trade, for which you have to pay interest. This is the financing rate and it can be a significant proportion of your trading costs.

Swissquote financing rates are average but higher than at the competitors in our comparison. The financing rates vary based on the base currency of your margin account.

These margin rates apply for futures and options as well.

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Forex fees

Swissquote's forex fees are low.

To have a clear picture of forex fees, we calculated a forex benchmark fee for major currency pairs. This catch-all benchmark includes commissions, spreads and financing costs for all brokers.

Both Swissquote Forex (UK) and Swissquote (CH) have spread on trading. 

Fund fees

Swissquote's fund fees are low. Mutual fund fees differ depending on the mutual fund providers.

We calculated the fees for the most popular mutual fund providers, such as  BlackRock and Fidelity.

Swissquote charges $9 per trade for 'Premium' funds, i.e. funds issued by prominent fund providers like BlackRock.

For other mutual funds, fees vary. For example, you can trade some Swiss funds for free.

Bond fees

Swissquote has generally high bond fees.

Swissquote charges a minimum fee as well as a percentage fee, which is quite high. 

Options fees

Swissquote options fees are high.

Swissquote options fees are volume-based, i.e. based on the number of contracts. 

Futures fees

Swissquote's futures fees are high.

The fee formula for index futures is the same as for index options, e.g. €1 per contract with a €5 minimum commission.

CFD fees

Swissquote has low CFD trading fees.

To have a clear understanding of CFD fees, we calculated a CFD benchmark fee for the selected products. This catch-all benchmark includes commissions, spreads and financing costs for all brokers.

CFD trading fees are built into spreads. We calculated with 20:1 leverage for stock index CFDs and 5:1 leverage for single stock CFDs.

You can find the full fee table for CFDs on the Swissquote website.

Crypto fees

Swissquote provides CFDs on five cryptocurrencies. There is a bid-ask spread, plus a commission:

• 1% for trade volume up to CHF 10,000
• 0.75% for trade volume between CHF 10,000 and 50,000
• 0.5% above CHF 50,000 

Robo-advisor

Swissquote provides a robo-advisory service. Fees vary depending on the amount of money you invest.

This fee is high - just to give a benchmark, ETFMatic, a European robo-advisor, charges around 0.6% annually.

Non-trading fees

Swissquote has average non-trading fees.

There is no inactivity fee and account fee. Depositing money is also free via bank transfer, but credit/debit card transfers are charged with a 2.2-2.5% fee. Swissquote (CH) charges a withdrawal fee, whereas Swissquote Forex (UK) does not.

There is also a high custody fee, which is charged after the securities you hold. The fee is 0.025% quarterly, with a CHF 15 minimum and CHF 50 maximum.

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Swissquote offers a fully digital account opening, although we encountered some technical difficulties during the identification process. There is no minimum deposit for trading accounts, but a high minimum for forex and robo-advisory accounts.

Can you open an account?

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Swissquote is a global stockbroker. Swissquote Forex (UK) serves residents from around 150 countries, while Swissquote (CH) serves some 120 countries. This includes all European and most major non-European countries, e.g. Australia, Hong Kong, etc.

You can't open an account at Swissquote Forex (UK) if you are from the US or Japan, and there are some smaller countries where the services of Swissquote (CH) are not available.

What is the minimum deposit at Swissquote?

There is no minimum deposit for trading accounts at Swissquote (CH). Forex accounts require between $1,000 and $50,000 minimum depending on the forex account you choose, while robo-advisory accounts require a minimum of CHF 10,000.

At Swissquote Forex (UK), there are different account types with different minimum deposit requirements:

• Premium account - €1,000 minimum
• Prime account - €5,000 minimum
• Elite account - €10,000 minimum

Account types

Swissquote (CH) offers three account types that differ in the required minimum deposit, the products you can trade with and the available trading platforms:

*Within the forex account, you can choose from four different accounts, which differ in pricing and minimum deposit.

• Standard - $1,000 minimum deposit, spreads from 1.7 pip, but no commission
• Premium - $10,000 minimum deposit, spreads from 1.4 pip, but no commission
• Prime - $50,000 minimum deposit, spreads from 1.1 pip, but no commission
• Professional - custom spreads, for applying you have to talk with Swissquote

It's also interesting, that leverage can be 1:100 for certain products, which is higher than the ESMA-regulated leverage levels.

At the London-based Swissquote Ltd you can open three account types, which differ in their pricing structure, minimum deposit, and maximum leverage:

*For qualifying to the professional account, you have to satisfy these three criteria: 

• Trade with derivatives, like CFD or forex, in significant size, and on average 10 times per quarter in the last four quarters
• Have a portfolio of at least €500,000.
• You had to work in the financial sector for at least one year.

How to open your account

Video identification is available both for the Swiss and UK entities, but we encountered some technical difficulties in both cases and the waiting times (more than 5 minutes) for the operators were inconvenient.

Depositing at Swissquote is quick with credit/debit card and can be done in several base currencies. On the negative side, you can only withdraw money via bank transfer.

Account base currencies

There are three available account base currencies for the stock, ETF, mutual fund, bond, options, and futures trading are CHF, EUR, and USD.

If you open a forex and CFD account, you can choose from 15 base currencies: GBP, EUR, CHF, AUD, JPY, PLN, CZK, HUF, USD, CAD, TRY, SEK, NOK, SGD, XGD . This selection is between Degiro and Saxo.

Why does this matter? For two reasons. If you fund your trading account in the same currency as your bank account or you trade assets in the same currency as your trading account base currency, you don't have to pay a conversion fee.

A convenient way to save on currency conversion fees is by opening a multi-currency bank account at a digital bank. Revolut or Transferwise both offer bank accounts in several currencies with great currency exchange rates as well as free or cheap international bank transfers. Opening an account only takes a few minutes on your phone.

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Deposit fees and options

Swissquote (CH) charges no deposit fees for bank transfers. For credit and debit card transfers deposit fees are somewhere between 2.2% and 2.5%, depending on your residency.

Swissquote Forex (UK) does not charge a fee for depositing funds.

A bank transfer can take several business days, while payment with a credit/debit card is nearly instant. It took 1 hour for us when we tested it.

You can only deposit money from accounts that are in your name.

Swissquote withdrawal fees and options

Swissquote withdrawal fees depend on where you trade, which country you transfer to and the currency of the transaction. Withdrawals at Swissquote Forex (UK) are free of charge, while Swissquote (CH) charges €2 for euro withdrawals and $10 for US dollar withdrawals. 

*SEPA or Single Euro Payment Area countries include all EU and EFTA countries. 

Both the UK and the Swiss entity's clients can only use bank transfers for withdrawal.

How long does it take to withdraw money from Swissquote? Swissquote says that it will send your withdrawal on the same day. We tested it and it took 1 day. You can only withdraw money to accounts in your name.

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The Swissquote (CH) eTrading platform has a lot of functions, so many that sometimes it can get complicated. Customizability is good and a there is a clear overview of trading fees, but you may run into some bugs.

Swissquote provides several trading platforms, and it can be difficult to decide which one to choose. 

If you are trading stocks, the eTrading platform is the one for you.

If you are trading with forex you can choose MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5 or Swissquote's own platform, Advanced Trader. 

In this review, we concentrate on Swissquote's eTrading platform.

Swissquote's trading platform is available in English, German, French and Italian. However, you may easily encounter instances when one subsection of a page suddenly changes to German, or that your news flow contains a mix of English, German, French and sometimes Italian news.

Look and feel

Swissquote's eTrading web platform design is average and functional. It feels clean but a bit outdated; functions are clear, while navigating among sections could be a bit better.

In some cases the platform is too Swiss-focused. For example, the Swiss stock market is at the top of the menu, above US and Europe. It can also be difficult to find how to go back to the previous menu. In many cases, you log out from the platform when you navigate between sections and need to log in again. This was quite annoying. 

The platform can be customized to your preferences.

Login and security

The default at Swissquote is a simple login, but you can set a more secure authentication with a physical code card or through mobile authentication. Read more about Swissquote's 2-step identification here.

Search functions

The search function is good. Depending on the asset categories, you can set plenty of advanced filter parameters, such as rating, sector, risk, analyst recommendation, market cap, etc. 

On the other hand, the search results are not always satisfactory. Swiss assets are always overrepresented in the results and many times not the most important assets are at the top of the list. We also encountered timeouts several times while waiting for search results.

Placing orders

The order panel is simple, with only four order types:

• Limit
• Market
• Stop
• Stop limit

The order term can only be set by date. In case of some exchanges (e.g. SIX, the Swiss exchange) you get some additional order types and terms.

To get a better understanding of these terms, read this overview of order types.

Alerts and notifications

You can set up price alerts and make a watchlist. With news alerts you can have a custom alert box filled with news of your choice. You get notifications when your trades are executed. In addition to the alert section in the trading platform, you can opt in for email notifications as well.

Portfolio and fee reports

It is simple to check your portfolio. Trading fees are easy to see on the order panel before submission, but it is relatively hard to get a clear report on all the fees you paid. For example, you need to wait 30 minutes to have your asset statement compiled.

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Swissquote's eTrading has a user-friendly and well-designed mobile trading platform. The search function is simple, although sometimes the results are weighted a bit strangely, like on the web platform.

Swissquote provides mobile trading platforms for all of its web trading platforms:

• eTrading
• MetaTrader 4
• MetaTrader 5
• Advanced Trader

These are all available both for iOS and Android. In this review, we tested eTrading on iOS.

The platform is available in English, French, German and Italian, but the app language depends on your phone's language setting.

Look and feel

The Swissquote mobile trading platform looks modern and easy to use, but sometimes you have to go deep to find all the functionalities. We liked that if you rotate your phone horizontally, you can see a more detailed view of some lists and charts.

Login and security

Swissquote provides only a one-step login, but if you turn on Level 3 security, it prompts you to submit a separate secure PIN.

After logging in, you can set biometric authentication, which is a convenient feature.

Search functions

The search function is quite simple and lacks the advanced filters available on the web platform. You can only set asset type classes. The results are sometimes overweighted toward Swiss assets, similarly to the eTrading web platform.

Placing orders

You can use the following order types:

• Market
• Limit
• Stop
• Stop Limit

The only order time limit you can use is Good 'til Date (GTD).

In case of some exchanges (e.g. SIX) you get some additional order types and terms.

Alerts and notifications

You can set price, news and order confirmation alerts and notifications on the mobile platform.

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There is no dedicated desktop trading platform for trading stocks, ETFs, bonds or mutual funds. Forex accounts have three trading platforms: Advanced Trader, MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5.

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At Swissquote (CH) you have access to many markets and trade with a lot of different product types. At Swissquote Forex (UK) you can trade only forex and some CFDs.

Swissquote (CH) offers a lot of different products, with almost everything available, from stocks to options. Swissquote also has a wide selection of available markets and an exceptionally broad range of mutual funds. The selection of bonds, options and futures is OK.

Stocks and ETFs

Swissquote offers access to 60 stock exchanges worldwide. This is a really wide selection of markets, better than Saxo's or Degiro's although not as high as Interactive Broker's 78. Swissquote also offers US penny stocks.

You can trade with a decent number of ETFs, though not as many as its main competitors offer.

Forex

Swissquote Forex (UK) provides 78 currency pairs. This is a high number, although not as high as at Saxo Bank. 

Funds

There is a very wide range of funds availabe at Swissquote, with around 13,000 mutual funds  from some 340 fund service providers.

Bonds

Swissquote's selection of bonds is great too. It is wider than Saxo's or Degiro's, but smaller than Interactive Broker's.

Options

The number of available options markets is OK, but less than what is offered by Saxo or Degiro.

Futures

Swissquote provides access to a few futures markets.

CFDs

Disclaimer: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 79% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Swissquote offers CFDs through its UK entity. Besides forex, you can trade CFDs on stock indices, commodities and bonds. Individual stock and ETF CFDs are not available.

Cryptos

Swissquote offers 5 cryptos as CFDs. These are not leveraged CFDs though, you can only trade them without leverage. 

Available cryptos:

• Bitcoin
• Bitcoin Cash
• Ether
• Litecoin
• Ripple

In addition to cryptos as CFDs, you can theoretically buy Bitcoin and Ether ETNs on the Swedish Nasdaq. However, we could not find the products' ISIN number on Swissquote's platform, even though "Scandinavian markets" are available.

Themes Trading

Swissquote has an excellent special product, called themes trading. These trading ideas are based on a common theme, which can be quite interesting. A few examples:

• African Consumer
• Cannabis
• China's Dragons
• BioTech Revolution
• Robotics & AI

The underlying portfolio and the past performance of these products are well documented. We really liked this themes trading service.

Robo-advisor

Swissquote provides a robo-advisory service. It's suitable for you if you don't want to manage your investments on your own or simply need to gain some confidence in investing.

However, the minimum investment amount starts from CHF 10,000 and fees range between 0.95% and 1.25%. This fee is quite high in comparison with other robo-advisors. 

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Swissquote offers a good interactive chart and lots of news from various sources in different languages, although the mix of languages can be confusing. Some research services are only for a fee, which is a huge drawback as the free ones are mostly basic.

Swissquote's free research services are OK, but not the best in class. It also provides some more advanced subscription-based research, but the fees are not competitive. In this review, as with other brokers, we concentrate only on the free services.

Swissquote research is available in English, German and French. Some reports are also available in Italian, Spanish, Czech, Russian, Arabic and Chinese.

Recommendations

There are some reports and news commentaries. These are ad-hoc and you cannot search for a specific asset or market. The recommendations may include a target price and can be based on either fundamental or technical analysis. There are also rankings for stocks, which are a synthesis of analyst recommendations.

Fundamental data

You can access a limited amount of fundamental data for free. You can see historical earnings per share (EPS) and company calendars.

Trading ideas

Swissquote provides trading ideas based on a common theme. This is called Themes Trading and you can either cherry-pick assets from the thematic portfolios or trade them as a structured product.

Charting

Swissquote has a good charting tool. It's easy to use, complex, but not overcomplicated. You have 18 technical indicators, which is not a lot compared to other brokers. You can save the chart on the charting tool, which is a handy feature.

News feed

It's worth signing up for Swissquote's newsletters, as their quality is good, content is useful, and you can choose the topics that interest you. 

The news flow is in a mix of languages both on the website and in eTrader. It's confusing to see German, English, French and Italian news at the same time if you don't speak all of these languages (thumbs up if you do!). You can set a filter, but it will not be saved, so you need to do it every time. There is no economic calendar, at least we didn't find one.

Other research tools you will enjoy

There is 'Pulse', which is a Facebook wall-like tool for traders. The discussion was mostly in French when we checked.

For professional traders, Swissquote provides an API, called FIX API. This API allows you to be directly connected with Swissquote's liquidity providers, which can make your trades cheaper and faster.

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Swissquote has phone, email and live chat support. When tested, the live chat operator could not answer more complex pricing-related questions.

You can contact Swissquote customer service via:

• Live chat
• Phone
• Email

Response times were short on the phone (1-2 minutes) and by email (1 day), and average on live chat. The relevancy of the answers was good most of the time, but on live chat it we did not always get satisfactory information.

Customer service is available in multiple languages: Arabic, Chinese, Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian. Most likely some other major languages are available as well, but not minor ones like Hungarian. It can get a bit confusing whether you are speaking with the Swiss or the UK office, and they cannot provide information on the other entity.

It would be great to have 24/7 availability. They are available from 11 pm Sunday to 11 pm Friday.

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Swissquote provides easy-to understand and professional educational videos, ebooks, webinars and tutorials.

There are a lot of good-quality educational tools available, such as:

• Tutorial videos for the platforms
• Forex learning center with educational videos, ebooks
• Webinars and seminars

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Swissquote is considered safe on multiple levels: it's regulated by top-tier authorities, listed on the Swiss exchange, discloses its financial statements and has a banking license.

Is Swissquote regulated?

Yes, Swissquote is a Switzerland-based broker established in 1996, serving clients from all over the globe and it's regulated by top-tier financial authorities.

The main entities (CH, UK) are regulated by:

• Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA)
• Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)

Other Swissquote entities are regulated by:

• Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA)
• Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC)
• Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)

Is Swissquote safe?

To be certain, we highly advise that you check two facts:

• how you are protected if something goes wrong
• what the background of the broker is

How you are protected

Since Swissquote operates multiple legal entities, investor protection depends on which one you are a client of. 

• Swissquote Bank Ltd is based in Switzerland and regulated by FINMA, the Swiss financial regulator. If you are a client here, you get CHF 100,000 investor protection per account.
• Swissquote Ltd is based in the UK and regulated by the FCA, the UK's financial authority. Clients are covered by £85,000 in investor protection per account.

Swissquote also has other subsidiaries for residents in the Middle East and Asia.

*Middle-Eastern residents' assets are held in Switzerland. This means that clients at Swissquote MEA Ltd are under FINMA's protection as well.

Also, in 2019, Swissquote acquired Internaxx. It has no significant impact on the service Internaxx provides, e.g. clients opening an account at Internaxx will use Internaxx's platforms and fees. However, it has a significant impact on the safety and background of Internaxx as Swissquote has strong financials, listed on a stock exchange, and has banking background, which means additional safety for Internaxx as well.

Swissquote provides negative balance protection for forex spot and CFD trading, but only for retail clients from the European Union. Professional and non-EU clients are not covered with any negative balance protection.

Background

Swissquote (CH) was established in 1996, while Swissquote (UK), the forex division was established in 2008. The longer track record a broker has, the more proof we have that it has successfully survived previous financial crises. In Swissquote's case this means 23 years, which indicates a solid performance.

Swissquote has a banking license, and as such, it is subject to tougher regulations than brokers.

Swissquote is listed on the stock exchange, which is a big plus for safety as Swissquote releases financial statements regularly and transparently.

Having a banking license, being listed on a stock exchange, providing financial statements, and being regulated by top-tier authorities are all great signs for Swissquote's safety.

Find your safe broker

Swissquote is an investment bank with a rock-solid background:

• It is Swiss,
• it is listed on an exchange
• and it is a bank. 

It has two main entities, one in the UK and one in Switzerland. If you open an account at the London-based entity you can trade forex and CFDs, while the Swiss entity gives you access to asset classes ranging from stocks to options.

Swissquote offers a broad range of products across many markets. There are many stocks, mutual funds, and a lot of different other types of products, from bonds to cryptos.

However, nothing comes for free: Swissquote's trading fees are relatively high. 

All in all, Swissquote is a great stockbroker. As you can trade many products and no inactivity fee is charged, feel free to give it a try.

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