Withdrawal benefits from the pension fund often involve a lot of money. For this reason, some finpension customers want to make a staggered investment. However, staggered investment is impossible without further ado with a vested benefits account, as the balance is transferred in one go. This article shows how you can make a staggered investment with finpension’s vested benefits foundations.
Contents
| Variant 1 with standard strategy |
| Variant 2 with customised investment strategy |
| Why doesn’t finpension offer a function for automatic investing in tranches? |
Option 1 with standard strategy: Invest in tranches by regularly increasing the equity component
With the first option, you increase the equity component by periodically selecting a new standard strategy. We use the term “standard strategy” to refer to the strategies predefined by finpension, such as finpension Equities 40 (pension provision).
You can proceed as follows:
- First choose an investment strategy with a 0% equity component.
- Then change the investment strategy at regular intervals by selecting the strategy with the next highest equity component.
This allows you to gradually increase the proportion of equities and invest in stages accordingly. You do this until you reach the desired proportion of shares that corresponds to your risk appetite.
Example: Quarterly increase in the equity component
By switching to an investment strategy with the next highest equity allocation every three months, you will reach the highest equity allocation of 99% in one year.
| January 2025 | April 2025 | July 2025 | October 2025 | January 2026 | |
| finpension Shares 20 (pension provision) | finpension Shares 40 (pension plan) | finpension Shares 60 (pension plan) | finpension Shares 80 (pension plan) | finpension Shares 100 (pension plan) | |
| Cash | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% |
| Shares | 20% | 40% | 60% | 80% | 99% |
| Bonds | 70% | 50% | 30% | 10% | 0% |
| Real estate | 9% | 9% | 9% | 9% | 0% |
We do not recommend starting with the 0% equity strategy. The 0% equity strategy contains a different bond fund than the strategies with an equity component of 20 to 99%. So if you were to start with the 0% equities strategy, you would buy this bond fund in full again in the next step. As the purchase and sale of bond funds indirectly via the stock exchange leads to costs due to a price difference between the purchase and sale price, it is better to start directly with the equity 20 strategy. If you wish to avoid these unavoidable transaction costs on bond funds altogether, we recommend option 2.
Variant 2 with customised investment strategy: Gradual increase in the equity component, starting with 100% cash
In this variant, the equity component is not adjusted by changing the standard strategy, but by periodically adjusting an individual investment strategy.
This variant is a little more complicated. You must proceed as follows:
1. prepare an initial investment strategy:
- The first step is to select an investment strategy with the desired investment focus and fund house.
- Then change this investment strategy by changing the investment focus to Self-determined / Customised (Strategy > Change strategy > Investment focus: Customised). Then remove all bond instruments, reduce the weighting of all equity instruments to 0% and increase the weighting for cash to 100%.
2. change individual strategy periodically:
- Now change the investment strategy periodically. Reduce the weighting for cash and increase the weightings for equity instruments. You can use the following tables as a guide.
Example: Investment plan over 10 months
The target allocation of this investment plan is the finpension Global 100 (pension provision) investment strategy, which is implemented with Swisscanto funds. The cash component amounts to a minimum of 1%.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | ||
| Equity share | 0% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 50% | 60% | 70% | 80% | 90% | 99% |
| Cash | 100% | 90% | 80% | 70% | 60% | 50% | 40% | 30% | 20% | 10% | 1% |
| Swisscanto (CH) Index Equity Fund Large Caps Switzerland NT CHF | 0% | 3% | 6% | 9% | 12% | 15% | 18% | 21% | 24% | 27% | 29% |
| Swisscanto (CH) IPF I Index Equity Fund World ex CH NT CHF | 0% | 2% | 4% | 6% | 8% | 10% | 12% | 14% | 16% | 18% | 20% |
| Swisscanto (CH) IPF I Index Equity Fund World ex CH NTH CHF | 0% | 2% | 4% | 6% | 8% | 10% | 12% | 14% | 16% | 18% | 20% |
| Swisscanto (CH) IPF I Index Equity Fund Small Cap World ex CH NT CHF | 0% | 1% | 2% | 3% | 4% | 5% | 6% | 7% | 8% | 9% | 10% |
| Swisscanto (CH) Index Equity Fund Emerging Markets NT CHF | 0% | 1% | 2% | 3% | 4% | 5% | 6% | 7% | 8% | 9% | 10% |
| Swisscanto (CH) Index Equity Fund Small & Mid Caps Switzerland NT CHF | 0% | 1% | 2% | 3% | 4% | 5% | 6% | 7% | 8% | 9% | 10% |
Download: Investment plans for other investment strategies
The allocation of investment strategies with a different investment focus or fund house can be found in the various sheets of the following Excel file: Investment plans for staggered investment.
The Excel contains the following investment plans:
- fp Global 100 Swisscanto
- fp Global 100 UBS
- fp Switzerland 100 Swisscanto
- fp Switzerland 100 UBS
- fp Sustainable 100 Swisscanto
- fp Sustainable 100 UBS
Why doesn’t finpension offer a function in the app to automatically make a staggered investment?
It’s more complicated than you might think. The needs of customers are very diverse:
- What does the initial allocation look like? This could also be something other than cash.
- What does the target allocation look like?
- How long should it take until the target allocation is reached?
- How high should the levels for increasing the equity component be (5 %, 10 %, 20 %, 25 %)?
All of this would still be somehow “manageable”. But what happens if the customer changes their mind about the investment plan and wants to adapt it? That’s when things get complicated. This is when things get complicated. For this reason, we do not currently offer a staggered investment function for finpension pension foundations.
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