Our ETF asset management service is aimed at persons domiciled in Switzerland. If you are domiciled outside Switzerland, you can still become a client if 1. you request our service on your own initiative (as an option from a foreign provider) and 2. the following requirements are met

• You are not taxable in the USA (not a “US person” according to US tax law).
• You have an account in your name at a bank located in the SEPA area.
• Identification by passport or ID card must be done at our office in Zurich (we are working on online identification being possible).
• You are at least 18 years old.

Contact our customer service by e-mail at info@invesdecenty.ch or by phone at +41 44 211 79 71 if you are not a Swiss resident and would like to become a customer.

You can select any bank of your choice (but only with our partner bank are the bank charges included in the fees)!

So far we have ALWAYS managed to work with the bank of the customer’s choice.

Yes and No: Although our operations have a high degree of automation, we are far from being a Robo-Advisor, as we can offer you far more and more individualized investments than conventional Robo-Advisors, many of which only have a limited investment and strategy universe and hardly offer any personalized advice.

No. Revocation is possible at any time on the next banking day and can be done by mail or e-mail.

Our ETF asset management service is aimed at persons domiciled in Switzerland. If you are domiciled outside Switzerland, you can still become a client if 1. you request our service on your own initiative (as an option from a foreign provider) and 2. the following requirements are met

• You are not taxable in the USA (not a “US person” according to US tax law).
• You have an account in your name at a bank located in the SEPA area.
• Identification by passport or ID card must be done at our office in Zurich (we are working on online identification being possible).
• You are at least 18 years old.

Contact our customer service by e-mail at info@invesdecenty.ch or by phone at +41 44 211 79 71 if you are not a Swiss resident and would like to become a customer.

With most banks, a banking relationship is only possible from the age of 18. This is also the case with Swissquote Bank.

However, some other banks do offer an account or custodian account for young people under the age of 18, as long as at least one parent or legal guardian is a “joint owner”. Upon reaching the age of majority, the sole authority can then be transferred to the person who is now of age, if desired.

We can clarify such cases for you in advance and provide you with quotes. In such a case, please contact us by e-mail at info@invesdecenty.ch or by phone at +41 44 211 79 71.

After opening your account with the bank that maintains your account, you will receive a letter with all the account information you need to make the transfer. You can make further deposits to this account at any time. However, the deposit must be made from an account in your name.

Yes, this is possible in principle: all securities can be transferred to our custodian accounts. However, there are exceptions, which is why the submission of a list stating the security number (or ISIN) of the securities to be transferred is required to ensure a smooth process.

In such a case, please contact us by e-mail at info@invesdecenty.ch or by telephone at +41 44 211 79 71 so that we can organize the securities account transfer for you.

In the rarest cases we invest your money immediately and completely. Depending on the market situation and development, we build up your portfolio step by step.

No. There is neither a contractual minimum term nor a cancellation period.

No. Regardless of whether the budget is small or large, experience has shown that the investment strategy we implement for small budgets differs in only a few details from the portfolios of billionaires.

There are no fees with invesdecenty unless we manage to increase your assets from year to year. Then you pay us 15% of this annual profit (which must always be above your personal Highwatermark ); 85% remains as your profit. If we don’t make a profit for you in one year, you don’t pay any fees and your Highwatermark, i.e., the highest ever achieved (annual) portfolio value, remains. Unless we reach this value again, you don’t pay a cent in fees (period!).
What is not included in this 15% management fee and has to be paid by you are the costs of the ETFs themselves. These amount to an average of about 0.15% to 0.25% and are already included in the ETF prices.

Of course. Here we manage your assets classically with an annual asset management commission of 0.75%. The portfolio is also individually tailored to your needs and is regularly adjusted to the current market conditions. However, if you do not select our partner bank as the custodian bank, the transaction and custody costs will be borne by you.

Example:
Assets under management: CHF 10’000
Your fee is: 0.75% per year

Annual costs: CHF 75.00 (plus the transaction and custody fees of the respective bank, if you do not choose our partner bank Swissquote)

Due to the Money Laundering Act (GwG) we are obliged to identify our clients.

At the moment, identification is done either at our office at Seefeldstrasse 27 in 8008 Zurich or by a notarized copy of your ID (the cost of the notarization will be reimbursed to you).

However, we are working on the possibility of having the identification done online in the future.

No. We are independent (invesdecenty and Keller Asset Management AG) and have no business relationship with any specific ETF issuer in order to objectively select the best investment products for you. Thus, we do not receive any kickbacks, rebates, finder’s fee or other sales commissions within the scope of our asset management mandate.

We invest your money (or portfolio) globally in all major asset classes such as equities, government and corporate bonds, real estate, commodities, private equity or hedge funds and mainly in low-cost ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) in order to achieve optimal risk diversification.

An overview of the currently selected ETFs can be found in the investment strategy section.

With many digital asset management services, such as Robo-Advisors, you can only compile your portfolio from an already limited range of ETFs. Not so with us: although we also make a pre-selection for your investment strategy from over 2000 ETFs, there is always the possibility that you can also make completely individual investment requests. We then check with you whether they fit you and your investment profile in terms of risk, liquidity, tradability or other important criteria.

ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) are actually classic investment funds, which are not usually “subscribed” (purchase request to the fund manager) and “redeemed” (sale request to the fund manager), but which can be traded easily, quickly and cheaply via an exchange according to supply and demand (therefore the expensive issue surcharges of around 5% of the order volume are also eliminated). Unlike an actively managed investment fund, an ETF tracks the performance of a stock market index (e.g., SPI, Swiss Performance Index) without the need for a fund manager to make investment decisions.

ETFs are cheaper because usually only one benchmark index is tracked/replicated in the fund. Thus, there is no need for an expensive fund manager. However, recently, low-cost ETFs that follow an active investment strategy have also been entering the market.

When selecting ETFs, we pay attention to the following criteria:

• low fees: on the one hand, we pay attention here to the TER (Total Expense Ratio), i.e., the costs of the ETF itself, and on the other hand to the TCO (Total Costs of Ownership), i.e., the trading and holding costs.
• tax transparency
• sufficient liquidity: to ensure the best possible tradability, we pay attention to the trading volumes on the different exchanges and from among similar ETFs we select those that are traded more frequently, with higher turnover and with tighter bid-ask spreads.
• Replication method: preferably, we choose ETFs that are physically replicated. That is, the ETF replicates the underlying index by buying the individual index components. In the case of commodities, this is not always possible, which means that the ETF only replicates the index synthetically through a so-called swap transaction with a counterparty that guarantees the performance of the desired index.
• ESG criteria: whenever possible, we use those ETFs in the asset classes where sustainability criteria are taken into account.

We are independent and have no relationship with any particular ETF issuer in order to objectively select the best investment products for you. As such, we do not receive any kickbacks, rebates, finder’s fee or other distribution commissions as part of our asset management mandate.

In principle, we can trade all investments for you in addition to the proven ETFs, as long as they fit your risk or investment profile (e.g., income, assets, financial know-how, etc.) or are available; because that is the + in invesdecenty asset management.

However, for certain direct investments in hedge funds or private equity funds, there are also minimum investment amounts (e.g., USD 100’000.00 or USD 1’000’000.00) and, if applicable, the additional contracts to consider.

Since we invest mainly in ETFs, stocks, bonds, usually most investments can be bought and sold within seconds/minutes. For actively managed funds, the trading interval is usually 1 day (in rare cases 1 week or 1 month).

However, for direct investments in hedge funds or private equity funds, there is often only monthly trading. In addition, the respective lockup periods (notice periods) must be observed (e.g., 3 months, 1 year, etc.).

Yes, with your online banking login you can view all transactions on your account or securities account at any time via website or smartphone. In addition, all statements (transactions, distributions, etc.) are stored in your mailbox.

Total Expense Ratio: includes all costs charged to an ETF (or any other mutual fund) in relation to its asset value per year. In most cases, these costs range between 0.02% and 0.75%, depending on the investment.

Unfortunately, since we have no distribution agreements with investment providers, we have no control over these costs.

Example:
iShares ETF
TER: 0.15%
Fund assets: CHF 100’000’000.00
The annual fees charged to the fund are therefore CHF 150,000.00.

So if you hold shares equivalent to CHF 5,000.00 in your portfolio, the ETF will be charged CHF 7.50 per year in fees. The market value of the ETF will then fall by this amount in this case.

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Distributions (e.g., dividends or interest) from the ETFs (or other investments) we use are credited to your account and automatically reinvested the next time you adjust your portfolio.

We mainly invest in long-only ETFs (appreciation only occurs when prices rise). Above certain investment amounts and if you agree, we can also invest in short-ETFs, which increase in value if the underlying index decreases in value.

Due to the mechanics of such short-ETFs, we use these ETFs but only over a short duration (usually between 1 and 6 months), otherwise the cost of this special price replication becomes too large.

Example: The SMI falls by 7% in one week. The short ETF rises in the same period by about 6.5%. The situation can be different for a period of about 4 months: the SMI has fallen by e.g., 15% in this period, but the short ETF has increased by only about 9% in the same period (due to the daily performance adjustment costs).

Primarily, we invest in non-leveraged ETFs. From certain investment amounts and if you agree, we can also invest in leveraged ETFs, which have a leverage of e.g., 2.

However, due to the mechanics of such leveraged ETFs, we only use these ETFs for a short duration (usually between 1 and 6 months), otherwise the cost of leveraged price replication becomes too large.

The assets of a fund (in this case an ETF) are legally considered special assets and are therefore protected from the insolvency of an ETF provider or its creditors. Only the shareholders of the ETF, i.e., you, are entitled to these special assets.

You can select any bank of your choice (but only with our partner bank are the bank charges included in the fees)!

So far we have ALWAYS managed to work with the bank of the customer’s choice.

With most banks, a banking relationship is only possible from the age of 18. This is also the case with Swissquote Bank.

However, some other banks do offer account or custody account management for young people under the age of 18, as long as at least one parent or legal guardian is a “joint-owner”. Upon reaching the age of majority, the sole authority can then be transferred to the person who is now of age.

We can clarify such cases for you in advance and obtain offers for you. In such a case, please contact us by e-mail at info@invesdecenty.ch or by phone at +41 44 211 79 71 to our customer service.

Yes. Joint accounts are available.

Yes, this is possible without restrictions; depending on your wishes, we will handle our strategy through the financial institution of your choice. However, we would like to point out that a fee-free cooperation is currently only possible with our partner bank (account and deposit management as well as transaction costs included). With all other banks you have to pay the bank fees.

(Subject to change: we are of course striving to extend our fee model to other banks).

Yes, you can run multiple portfolios, for example to run a different strategy for each portfolio. Unfortunately, at the moment this is only possible with our partner bank through additional, separate logins. At other banks, multiple portfolios can be kept within a single login.

Just one thing: If any such hidden bonuses are incurred or offered to us, they will land in your wallet immediately – no exceptions!

The personal data transmitted in the course of registration and contract conclusion are always encrypted and stored in a data center in Switzerland.

If you want to change your personal data, please contact our customer service by e-mail info@invesdecenty.ch.

Yes and No: Although our operations have a high degree of automation, we are far from being a Robo-Advisor, as we can offer you far more and more individualized investments than conventional Robo-Advisors, many of which only have a limited investment and strategy universe and hardly offer any personalized advice.

As a regulated financial services institution, we are legally obligated to get a picture of your financial situation and other relevant circumstances. Only then are we allowed to recommend an investment strategy that is suitable for you.

At the beginning of the registration process, we therefore first determine your individual risk tolerance with the help of a questionnaire. Two aspects play an important role here:

Your subjective acceptance of taking risks. This determines the risk level at which you feel comfortable and can sleep well.

And your objective ability to take risks. This determines the risk level that is compatible with your personal circumstances (e.g., income and expenses) and your financial situation.

Based on this information, we determine your risk category and recommend an investment strategy that’s right for you – but it’s not set in stone yet….

Based on your information regarding your risk capacity, your current financial situation and your expectations, we calculate different investment portfolios so that you do not take more risk than you can – or want to.

In our experience, our non-parametric risk model makes our portfolios somewhat safer for short time frames and somewhat riskier for longer time frames than portfolios suggested to you by banks.

So you can be sure: we don’t take more risk for you than you can handle in a worst-case scenario.

Yes, if you don’t agree with our proposal, we can make adjustments together. This way your portfolio is always 100% personalized.

Basically, we can align or optimize your portfolio to all major foreign currencies if you do not want to use Swiss Francs.

In your portfolio we do the asset management for you. This means that we make the investment decisions for you regarding the portfolio allocation and always select the most suitable investment instruments for you. We track all your investments in our risk monitor. As soon as investments fall below (or exceed) certain limits, we automatically adjust your portfolio to the new situation.

The earlier, the better! It has been shown that you can build up a very good annual return or passive income over very long time periods with stocks. For example, if you had invested part of your savings in an SPI ETF (Swiss Performance Index ETF) in 1988, the average return would have been around 11.1% per year until 2019. For an investment amount of CHF 10,000, that would be around CHF 1,100 per year (or almost CHF 100 per month).

When we make an investment for you, we also set a virtual stop-loss at about 90% (this stop-loss is not the same for all investments) of the purchase price. If the ETF then increases, for example, by 10% (this value is also not the same for all investments), we also increase the virtual sell mark by 10%. If the ETF increases another 10% from 110 to 120, we also increase the virtual sell mark again: from 100% to 110%. We do this until the uptrend is broken and the ETF does not rise any further, or even falls below the virtual sell mark. If this mark is sustainably undercut, we will sell the ETF so that we can achieve the profit for you.

In simple terms, the Hurdle Rate is the risk-free interest rate. For example, the interest rate on your bank account.

Important: our performance fee is only based on the profit that exceeds the Hurdle Rate (currently at 0%).

It would not be fair to you if we also took into account the performance below this rate (e.g., if the Hurdle Rate is 5%, but we only generated 5% appreciation for you in the year; then you could have just as easily left the money in your account…).

You can do this at any time and without any restrictions.

In practice, due to the findings of behavioral finance, trading intervals are not always perfectly independent, as for example a large transaction can affect the price of a stock and lead to further sales, or that homo economicus simply does not always decide rationally. This explains why, for example, real returns crowd more around the mean, but can also spill further into the margins or extremes (even on the loss side), causing investors to take more risk than the parametric (= assumption of a distribution function) risk models suggest to them.

As a better approach, we therefore recommend the use of non-parametric measurement approaches, where historically actual market price changes are directly incorporated into the simulation of portfolios. This makes an assumption about the possible distribution function of an investment unnecessary. We therefore do not have to make any model assumptions or estimate any data in our risk model, as is the case with parametric risk models (e.g., value-at-risk, VaR).

In our experience, the worst-case scenarios we simulate in this way provide a better and more intuitively understandable basis for making decisions about your portfolio selection and the resulting risks. If the potential loss in such a worst-case scenario is greater than your loss tolerance (with which you can still sleep peacefully), we will adjust your portfolio until the simulated maximum loss and your loss tolerance are approximately equal again.

A (somewhat extreme) example using the DAX (German Stock Index) 2005 to 2007:
average return of 22.1%
with a volatility of 11.0%.

​According to the VaR approach, the DAX does not lose more than -10.9% per year with 99% probability (approximated for confidence interval of 99%: Expected value = 3 times volatility).

Or formulated differently: According to theory, the loss in the Dax is only greater than 10.9% 1 time per hundred years.

In the last 20 years, however, there were 5 years in which the Dax fell more than -10.9% per year; in the last 50 years it was as many as 8 times. Thus, in reality, larger losses occur far more frequently than theory predicts (source: German Equities Institute, Yield Triangle).

In a worst-case scenario, we do not expect a loss of -10.9% (like in theory), but align our risk management in such a way that even with a potential loss of around -40%* in the DAX, your personal loss limit in the entire portfolio is not undercut as much as possible.

*1987: -36.4%, 2001: -32.9%, 2002: -43.9%, 2008: -40.4%

The average returns or gains (y-axis) for a given investment horizon (x-axis) for the DAX from 1969 to 2017 serve as an example here:

(Source: German Equities Institute, Yield Triangle).

If one calculates the expected returns of the DAX using the (log) normal distribution, one obtains return curves (thin lines) as predicted by theory at a confidence interval of 95%. However, if you contrast the actual returns with these, you see that, especially for short investment periods, the worst-case scenarios (thick, red line) resulted in much more sensitive wealth losses than predicted by the theory:

The common and generally accepted risk models such as the modern portfolio theory or portfolio selection of Harry Max Markowitz from 1952 or the risk measurement methods such as J. P. Morgan’s Value-at-Risk (VaR) approach have revealed their limitations, especially in the recent economic crises. This is especially true as these models have as a basic assumption the normal distribution of market price changes, which has been proven to be an oversimplification of the complex real-economic processes in our world, in which even extreme swings (mostly in the negative area of the yield curve) are quite “very likely” and therefore in no case to be neglected (e.g., “Black Monday” on October 19, 1987; The Dow Jones Industrial Index fell by 22.6% on this day).

A (somewhat extreme) example on the DAX (German Stock Index) 2005 to 2007:
Average return of 22.1%, with a volatility of 11.0%.

According to the VaR approach, the DAX does not lose more than -10.9% per year with 99% probability (approximated for confidence interval of 99%: Expected value = 3 times volatility).

Or formulated differently: According to theory only 1 time per 100 years is the loss in the DAX greater than 10.9%.

In the last 20 years, however, there have been 5 years in which the Dax has fallen more than -10.9% per year; in the last 50 years, it has fallen as much as 8 times. Thus, larger losses occur far more frequently in reality than the theory predicts (source: German Equities Institute, Yield Triangle).

Furthermore, the majority of these models are based on temporally stable (usually low) correlations of the respective investments (degree of dependencies among each other), which, however, can increase sharply especially in times of crisis, which can destroy the desired diversification effect (distribution of risk among several different investments/classes); i.e., exactly when one most likely needs this effect.

Nevertheless, these models also have their justification for existence – but always taking into account the fact that these models can only deliver adequate results in “normal” market phases.

At invesdecenty, we therefore use non-parametric risk models that are based on real losses that have already occurred (and not on theoretical loss and correlation probabilities) and by means of which we simulate so-called worst-case scenarios (maximum drawdown).

This means that we do not have to make any model assumptions or estimate any data in our risk model, as is the case with parametric risk models (e.g., Value-at-Risk, VaR).

If the potential loss in such a worst-case scenario is greater than your loss tolerance (with which you can still sleep peacefully), we adjust your portfolio until the simulated maximum loss and your loss tolerance are approximately equal again.

The basis for the most common economic theories is the concept of homo economicus, which serves as an abstraction of an average market participant. This person always acts rationally, maximizes his own utility and is always fully informed.

It can be assumed, however, that there are hardly any investors who use only their intellect and make all decisions exclusively according to economic principles. This is where behavioral finance theory comes in:

By means of experiments it was shown that individuals do not decide completely rationally, but their actions are also influenced by emotions, prejudices, past experiences and future expectations. Since, in most cases, individual information processing is also incomplete, this inevitably leads to unconscious and imperfect decision-making processes, which in turn lead to erroneous investment decisions in the securities portfolio.

A number of anomalies, inefficiencies and behavioral patterns have been studied in more detail so far and their influence on an individual’s investment behavior has been described (behavioral finance). Due to the diversity of anomalies, it will hardly be possible to mitigate all problem areas by an optimized portfolio selection, but the goal should be to select the portfolio allocation or the portfolio selection process in such a way that as many inefficiencies as possible are avoided.

A typical human (investment) behavior is, for example, to “bear” losses for too long, but to capture gains too quickly; simply because people or investors fear losses more (loss aversion) than they appreciate gains: many investors, for example, refuse to sell a stock at a loss in the hope that it will rise again above the entry price in the future (so-called disposition effect).

On the other hand, they sell shares with rising prices too quickly, because they “prefer the sparrow in the hand to the dove on the roof”.

At invesdecenty we counteract these behavioral aspects in investments (from a certain investment amount of usually CHF 100’000) among other things with stop loss and stop buy: as long as e.g., a stock/ETF is rising, we continuously tighten a stop loss (according to your investment strategy); and we only sell when this upward trend is broken.

In many cases, investment strategies are still divided into “pigeonhole” portfolios such as “balanced”, “income-oriented”, “opportunity-oriented” or similar. However, as already explained for the conventional risk models (1.) the returns of the investments are not lognormally distributed and (2.) especially in times of crisis, the correlations between the different investments are unusually high, which nullifies the diversification effect desired in theory and significantly increases the risk of loss across all “pigeonhole” portfolios. As a result, in such market phases, investors may be exposed to significantly greater financial risks than initially desired in the strategy decision, even in a “prudent” portfolio.

At invesdecenty, we therefore use non-parametric risk models, based on real losses that have already occurred (i.e., not on theoretical loss and correlation probabilities) and by means of which we simulate so-called worst-case scenarios (maximum drawdown).

Your securities and your account balance are not held by us, but by the account-holding bank. Since we only have limited asset management authority over your banking relationship, it is not possible for us to withdraw money from your banking relationship.

Your investments are not booked with invesdecenty or Keller Asset Management AG, but with the account-holding bank, i.e., both your account balance and your securities (e.g., ETFs). If Keller Asset Management AG is taken over, your account will remain with the account-holding bank and you can dispose of it at any time. If Keller Asset Management AG ceases its business activities, your account will also remain with the account-holding bank until you have closed your account and securities account or transferred the asset management mandate to another asset manager.

• on the one hand: the deposit balances (where your securities, investments, ETF’s, shares, etc. are kept) and

• on the other hand: the account balances

We at invesdecenty (in contrast to other Robo-Advisors) work exclusively with banks that hold your securities/investments in a separate account in your name and for your account. In the event of bankruptcy of the bank, your deposit values do not fall into the bankruptcy estate of the bank, but in such a situation are transferred to another bank and continued.

Important: the account balances (i.e., without securities, but only the cash balance) are always protected only up to CHF 100,000.00 per customer (per bank). However, we at invesdecenty always try to keep your account balance lower than the mentioned CHF 100’000.00.

Yes. A detailed Swiss tax directory for the previous tax year is available from our partner bank (CHF 100.00 per year) and also from all other banks (costs vary).

With our partner bank it is also possible to provide tax values according to German tax law. The additional costs for this are CHF 500.00 per year.

If you need tax values for other countries, this is not yet possible.

However, with other banks it may be possible to have “international” tax values issued.

While US domiciled ETFs often have very low costs and high liquidity, we do not use these ETFs in our portfolios so that you are not affected by US withholding tax and US estate tax.

However, if it is your express wish to invest in these ETFs, we will of course make this possible for you.

No. Revocation is possible at any time on the next banking day and can be done by mail or e-mail.

If you cancel your contract with invesdecenty, we will no longer perform any administrative actions. However, your accounts and deposits will remain with the bank. If there is still a management fee (e.g., because your assets have increased in the current year), this fee will only be charged up to the date of cancellation.

If you wish to permanently close your account and custody account with the bank, please contact us in such a case by e-mail at info@invesdecenty.ch or by telephone at +41 44 211 79 71, so that we can organize the final balancing for you.

It should be noted that a final account and custody account closure at the respective custodian bank is carried out separately, whereby the related fees (e.g., securities sales, securities transfers, etc.) will be charged to you by this bank.