Wealth management fees explained: all-in fees, TER and retrocessions

As of October 2026. This article is general information and does not assess any specific offer.

You cannot control returns, but you can control costs. A difference of 0.5 percent a year on CHF 1,000,000 is CHF 5,000 every year, and considerably more over 15 years once compounding is included. Fee models are still hard to compare because every provider splits them differently. Here is what the cost items are and how to put quotes on a common footing.

The cost items

Management fee

This pays for the service itself: investment decisions, monitoring, reporting. It is usually a percentage of assets per year, often tiered by portfolio size. Some providers add a performance fee. If so, ask exactly how it is calculated and whether a high-water mark applies.

Custody fee

The bank charges for holding your securities, usually as a percentage of portfolio value, sometimes with a minimum. With an independent manager, the custodian bank bills this separately.

Transaction costs

Each purchase and sale carries costs:

• brokerage charged by the bank, as a percentage or flat amount,
• third-party charges such as exchange fees, especially on foreign exchanges,
• Swiss securities transfer tax (stamp duty): 1.5 per mille on Swiss and 3 per mille on foreign securities (Art. 16 StG). The securities dealer owes half of this for each non-exempt party to the trade (Art. 17 StG). For you as a private client, that is typically 0.075 percent on Swiss and 0.15 percent on foreign securities.
• currency margins when francs are converted to buy assets in another currency.

Product costs (TER)

If your manager uses funds or ETFs, these have their own running costs, expressed as the total expense ratio (TER). The TER is charged inside the fund. It appears on no invoice, yet it reduces your return just the same. Broad index ETFs generally have a low TER; actively managed funds and hedge funds considerably higher ones. With structured products, costs are often built into the price and harder to see.

VAT

Asset management and custody are subject to VAT (Art. 21 para. 2 no. 19 let. e MWSTG; ESTV VAT sector info 14). The standard rate is 8.1 percent (Art. 25 MWSTG), so a quote of "0.8 percent plus VAT" costs you about 0.86 percent. For clients resident abroad, the treatment can differ.

All-in fee or separate fees

With an all-in fee you pay one rate for management, custody and trading. It is easy to budget, and frequent rebalancing costs nothing extra. Often not included, though: product TERs, third-party charges, stamp duty and currency margins. Ask for the list of exclusions.

With separate fees you pay each item individually. This can be cheaper when there is little trading, for example in a steady ETF strategy, and more expensive when there is a lot.

Neither model is cheaper by nature. An all-in fee rewards the provider for trading less; separate fees could in theory encourage more trading. It helps to know both incentives.

Retrocessions and the disclosure duty

Retrocessions are payments from product providers to banks or managers, for example a share of a fund's management fee. In 2006 the Federal Supreme Court ruled that such payments belong to the client and must be handed over unless the client has validly waived them (BGE 132 III 460). In 2012 it confirmed that this also applies to banks and to payments within a banking group (BGE 138 III 755).

Today, Art. 26 FinSA governs the issue:

• A financial service provider may only accept third-party payments if it has expressly informed you beforehand of their nature and scope and you waive them, or if it passes them on to you in full.
• If the amount is not known in advance, it must state the calculation parameters and ranges.
• On request, it must disclose the amounts actually received.

Group companies count as third parties (Art. 29 para. 2 FinSO). Only waive retrocessions deliberately, and only once you know the range.

What the provider must tell you

FinSA requires providers to inform you about the costs of the service they recommend (Art. 8 para. 2 FinSA). This covers one-off and ongoing costs and the costs of buying and selling financial instruments; where costs cannot be determined precisely, they must be given approximately or as ranges (Art. 8 FinSO). On request, providers must also report on the costs associated with the service (Art. 16 FinSA).

How to compare quotes fairly

1. Same starting point: give every provider the same portfolio size and strategy, for example "balanced, CHF 1,500,000".
2. Total cost in francs: ask for an estimate of total annual costs in francs and percent, including TER, trading, stamp duty, custody and VAT.
3. Exclusions: get in writing what an all-in fee does not cover.
4. Products: ask about the share of in-house products and the average TER.
5. Retrocessions: clarify whether third-party payments arise and whether they are passed on.
6. After the fact: ask whether you will receive an annual statement of costs actually incurred.

Example: two quotes on one basis

Illustration with round, assumed figures for a portfolio of CHF 1,500,000. Not a statement about market prices.

Quote A, all-in:

• all-in fee 0.90 percent: CHF 13,500
• VAT at 8.1 percent on that: CHF 1,094
• average fund TER 0.35 percent: CHF 5,250
• stamp duty and third-party charges, estimated: CHF 600
• Total about CHF 20,400, or 1.36 percent

Quote B, separate fees:

• management fee 0.60 percent: CHF 9,000
• custody fee 0.15 percent: CHF 2,250
• VAT at 8.1 percent on both: CHF 911
• trading including stamp duty, estimated: CHF 1,800
• average ETF TER 0.15 percent: CHF 2,250
• Total about CHF 16,200, or 1.08 percent

At first sight, 0.90 percent all-in looks close to 0.75 percent for management and custody. Only the full picture shows a gap of about CHF 4,200 a year. That does not tell you which offer is better, since performance, strategy and service count too. It tells you to compare numbers only after doing this calculation.

Thinking Steps sets out four providers side by side in an anonymised comparison and goes through the differences with you in a personal consultation.

Key points

• Costs include management, custody, trading, stamp duty, currency margins, product costs (TER) and VAT.
• An all-in fee rarely covers everything; TER, stamp duty and third-party charges are often excluded.
• Stamp duty typically costs private clients 0.075 percent (Swiss securities) or 0.15 percent (foreign securities) per trade.
• Retrocessions belong to you unless you waive them knowingly; amounts must be disclosed on request.
• Compare total costs in francs for the same strategy and portfolio size.