Alternatives after bankruptcy
Important info: In June 2024, the FINMA opens bankruptcy proceedings against FlowBank.
At present, the Bank in liquidationwhich is why she asked Schwiizerfranke to remove the FlowBank experience report.
According to the information available to date, there were still sufficient funds in the bank to pay out all customers, so that no customer lost money has. Find out more below.
If you are looking for a FlowBank Alternative you will find an overview of some brokers here:
| Swissquote | Saxo Bank | Degiro | Postfinance | Interactive Brokers | Migros Bank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |  |  |
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| Fees & Costs | - Order fees from CHF 3 for shares and ETFs - Custody fees CHF 20 – CHF 50 per quarter plus VAT. | - Order fees at least CHF 3 or 0.08% of the order volume (Classic) • Since 2025: Custody fees free of charge | - Order fees from EUR 1 (core ETF selection), SIX shares CHF 6 - Custody fees none | - Order fees on SIX staggered from CHF 6 to CHF 300 - Custody fees CHF 18 per quarter is credited to your trading balance. Any unused balance expires at the end of the quarter. | - Order fees 0.05% to 1.0% or min. CHF 1.50 to max. CHF 49 - Custody fees free of charge | - Order fees flat rate CHF 40 - Custody fees 0.23% or at least CHF 50 |
| What does an ETF purchase cost for CHF 10,000? | from CHF 9 (selected ETFs) | CHF 8, or free of charge when purchasing via AutoInvest savings plan | EUR 1 for core selection on Tradegate; an additional 0.25% when converting from CHF | CHF 30 | CHF 5 | CHF 40 |
| Swiss deposit guarantee up to CHF 100,000 |  | | | |
||
| Special advantages | - Savings plans - Wide range of products (shares, ETFs, options, cryptos) - Interest on cash | - Very low trading fees - Savings plans with free ETFs - Free tax statement - No minimum deposit - Only 0.25 % currency conversion fee - Interest on cash | - Favourable fees - Wide range of products - Intuitive user interface - Over 1,000 ETFs for EUR 1 per trade | - Custody fees are credited as trading credit - Simple account connection - Deposit protection | - No custody fees - Very low FX fees - Interest on cash - Extremely wide product selection - Professional tools for traders | - Flat fee for large orders - Swiss customer support - Branches |
| Disadvantages | • An electronic tax statement costs CHF 85 • Custody fees from CHF 80 per year plus VAT. | - Share register / AGM only via manual and partly chargeable process | - No entry in the share register - No Swiss deposit guarantee scheme for cash | - E-tax statement costs CHF 97.30 - Outdated user interface | - No Swiss deposit protection - Customer service difficult to reach | - Account opening Not fully digitised |
| Promotion? | Coupon for CHF 100 trading fees and selected ETFs discounted | Voucher for CHF 200 trading fees | Voucher for CHF 100 trading fees | Custody fees given as trading fees | - | - |
| Schwiizerfranke Rating |  |  |  |  | |  |
| View test report | View test report | View test report | View test report | View test report | Visit MB |
The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has authorised the Bankruptcy proceedings opened against FlowBank. This measure was taken to protect depositors. Here is the important information for you:
Securing your deposits and securities:
Further steps:
Unfortunately, nothing more is known so far. There is therefore no need to worry about money, but a reversal will probably take place. How this will look will hopefully be communicated soon.
If you have any questions or uncertainties, please consult the official sources of information or get in touch with the relevant contact person directly.
If you are looking for an alternative, secure and favourable online broker, you will find it here in the Broker comparison found it!
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I am still waiting for the securities transfer from FlowBank. Who else is still waiting? Is there any possibility of jointly claiming compensation for the waiting period (loss of securities, liquidity bottleneck, etc.)? Who will join in?
Have you contacted the liquidators? What I've heard from the community so far is that pretty much everyone else has received their securities and other funds.
I have not yet received a security either. Apart from the official contact details, is there any advice on how to obtain information on the status of the securities? Unfortunately, the Flowbank online banking page does not provide any information on the status. Thank you for the entries in this forum. Best regards.
Dear Community,
It is regrettable to hear that not everything was going smoothly at FlowBank financially and that finances were becoming increasingly tight. However, FINMA intervened in good time and initiated the bankruptcy before the deposit protection scheme even had to be invoked.
If you have invested with FlowBank, your funds are therefore not at risk. Cash balances are paid out and securities (shares etc.) are protected in the special assets and are also refunded.
Schwiizerfranke had established a partnership with FlowBank in the past, so this news hits me particularly hard. The young provider looked promising and had made its first profit in 2023, but apparently there were financial difficulties.
If any of you receive the first important information about the process in the coming days and weeks, please share it here.
I wish the FlowBank team all the best!
Kind regards,
Eric
Yes, I was also deeply touched by this news. It's a shame that Flowbank didn't manage to refresh the market. It probably simply had too few customers who traded frequently.
I also wonder how FINMA is financed and what influence this might have on its actions? 🤔
What is the status here? Do you have money in the bank?
Unfortunately, I am a Flowbank customer and yesterday I received the money, but not yet the titles I have there.
Hello Didi,
According to my information, the delivery of the securities will still take some time. It's good that the cash payments are already being made. Unfortunately, I don't know any more at the moment.
Unfortunately, I have not received any feedback from the law firm handling the case.
Since the new weblogin is online, I can no longer download any reports. Is it the same for you?
Support does not respond to my enquiry by email at all.
A tax statement for 100 francs is already heavy. And according to the latest issue of K-Money, the custody account also costs a whopping 200 francs a year. That was the most expensive Depot in comparison of 15 banks.
Thank you for the report, very helpful.
I noticed in other tests that "securities lending" was discussed there, which is missing here.
So what is Flowbank's position in this regard?
Thank you.
Hi Peter, thanks for your question!
There is no securities lending at Flow Bank, which is very positive.
Could it be that Flowbank is charging negative interest? I thought that was over? Or am I not understanding something correctly?
Greetings Björn
Do you have investments in foreign currency, e.g. euros? Then you may have neglected to set the automatic exchange...
Thanks for the article. An entry in the Swiss share register now costs CHF 50 and the procedure is relatively complicated. Perhaps you could adjust the fee in the article. I have not found customer service to be very reactive so far.
Is updated, thanks for your input Jon!
Merci beaucoup pour ton Flowbank avis et tes expériences !
Hello Eric, could you please take a closer look at finanzen.net zero? They apparently offer tax-optimised reporting for Switzerland. But I haven't found out yet at what cost. Thank you and greetings Yan
I'll be happy to take a look, thanks for your input, Yan!
I would also be very interested in this! finanzen.net zero is currently increasing its advertising to attract Swiss customers. Basically, it also looks very exciting. A test report on this broker would be great!
I would also be very interested in that!
are test accounts possible?
Yes, there is a demo account
I find the app good for me as a beginner to invest money regularly. However, the tax return is quite annoying. With any other online bank, you can simply download the tax statement for free, here I have to pay for it. It would also be interesting to see how much CHF I have already invested and how much CHF I have lost/gained. I don't know yet how I could get a complete overview.
You can also track your investments using portfolio trackers such as parqet or getquin to keep an overview. I use parqet myself. The basic version is free for securities/ETFs.
Entry in the Swiss share register CHF 0
or in the meantime CHF 50?
Hello
SQ has since changed the fees, e.g. withdrawal is free and the minimum fee is sometimes 5.-.
Hello Dave,
Thank you for your comment on Swissquote. I have updated the CHF 5 (for ETF Leader). Domestic withdrawals are free, but SEPA still costs CHF 2.
Good day
Are monthly or bi-monthly recurring orders possible, as with Swissquote in ETFs?
Unfortunately, there are no savings plans at FlowBank yet.
I'm beginning to suspect that flowbank is playing dirty or is about to go bankrupt. 1 month ago, they always suspended cfd trading 20 minutes after the stock market opened, of course when prices started to rise again, since almost 1 week all cfds have been blocked, apparently a system error, no one writes back to emails, only by phone you are informed half the time. I have invested large sums and open cfd positions that can never be executed profitably by phone, no infomails that something is not working or that other traders are also affected can be found on the net... somehow I can't believe this story, it can't be true...
Hello Sladjana,
I haven't noticed or heard anything else about this so far ... it's best to call customer service again, they are usually easy to reach. If the problem is not resolved, please share it again here with other CFD investors.
I can reassure you. FlowBank is currently experiencing technical problems with CFD trading (for about 2 weeks). However, you can easily place orders by phone at any time. For favourable prices, you just have to show some understanding for a "young" bank. I don't like it either, but I don't see any alternative. Otherwise, everything always went smoothly and I was very satisfied. Let's wait and see until they have solved the problems.
A broker has been having problems with CFD trading for 2 weeks and you call that "I can reassure you"? That's an absolute no-go and highly alarming!
Is anyone else having technical problems?
By the way, I would appreciate if you please comment with real names (first name is enough) to avoid spam. Thank you 🙂
Thank you for the comparison.
Is this current or from previous years?
It is mentioned that the registration in the share register is free of charge, but as far as I know this is not possible.
Can anyone help me?
Thank you very much!
I also wanted to register shares a few days ago, as I thought it was free (as with Swissquote). Unfortunately, I have just been informed that I will be charged CHF 50 per position.
I have been trying to open an account for a month - unfortunately without success. There was a technical error and for the last 4 weeks I have been totally ignored by customer service. No reply to my emails, they can't be reached by phone and the chat - when it does work - can't help either.
Is there a tax statement at FlowBank? How much does it cost?
Thank you and greetings M.
You can order an "official" tax statement from Support for CHF 100. This will then be issued by the "tax department".
Alternatively, you can download various reports in PDF or Excel format free of charge via the web portal. However, there is no total of dividends with or without VST. You can filter out dividend payments in Excel and calculate the individual totals (incl. conversion into CHF). It's a bit tedious, but I'll try it this way.
it would be interesting to get a comparison of the costs (individual different products) Flowbank and meinTrade.ch. So that one can decide depending on the purchase.... Many thanks
I joined at the end of September and got a share for CHF 278 (with >10,000 invested). It only fell afterwards, but I was able to sell it last week at the initial price. According to HP, this share is still available, but only once, subsequent deposits are no longer available.
I find the apps very practical, but I don't have a comparison because I'm a complete beginner. But they still have problems with the system, sometimes nothing can be called up (then the support for trades can be reached for free). The overview is on the HP; it is unusable on Google Chrome, Edge is ok.
The only minus for me: I can't dispose of a certain residual amount of my assets in account 1, there's some kind of error that they haven't found yet. But I was able to buy shares with it over the phone with the support; it's just inconvenient. But I was able to solve the problem by opening a second account and transferring this remaining amount to it; now it is freely available again.
The fee is some obligatory bank fee that you have everywhere, in the range of just under 0.8 %o. The bank, like everyone else, earns money on the spread (difference between ask and bid).
Thanks for all the helpful input!
Just for your information: The FlowBank promo with the free share expires on 30.09.20222 🙁
See https://www.flowbank.com/hubfs/Marketing-offers/July-2022/EN-0-CHF-Commission-Swiss-Stocks.pdf
the action is on again 🙂
A really well done comparison!
Funny that I hadn't heard of flowbank before! Looks exciting!
Hello everybody
Does anyone know how many customers Flow Bank AG has? I can't find any figures on the internet.
Thank you and greetings M.
Thanks Eric, I also opened an account. Activated the account the same day, transferred money and bought a few shares. Buying shares via mobile app worked fine. For each purchase it deducted a few centimes commission, don't know why. Very good design. I liked it very much. At first sight it is better than Swissquote. Now also US shares 0 fees.
Account closure fees: 15.-
Custody fees 0.1%, charged per quarter, min 10.- max 50.- per quarter, plus VAT.
Stock exchange fees and stamp duties are added in CH, even if the trade itself costs 0.-.
Real-time prices only for CHF stock exchanges, all others at least 15 minutes delayed or for all others real-time prices are subject to a charge.
Tax statement 100.-
Currency exchange 0.5%
Merci for the review! I didn't know Flowbank yet! It's exciting that there is a new bank from Switzerland and that it is refreshing the market.
I will have a closer look at the offer 🙂
Han receives a Novartis share worth around CHF 75 for a deposit of twice the minimum amount.
I am satisfied, although it suggests a lot more. Unfortunately, you don't know exactly what you're getting.
Well, that's great! Congratulations on the free share! 🙂 Where else can you get something like that?!
I am very satisfied and have also opened an account based on this post. Thanks for the contribution Eric.
For the registration of registered shares in the commercial register, you can simply contact support, if I have understood correctly.
Thank you Schwizerfranke for your detailed comparison. Could you possibly include Degiro in the comparison (fees, cotnto...etc) in addition to Flow Bank, Swissquote, many Swiss also use Degiro 🙂
- Can you tell me / can someone tell me what amounts you paid in the first time and which/how many shares you got for free.
(from 1000chf you get a free share, what do I get with 2000/3000chf first deposit)?
Thanks for the feedback
Hello Andre
the Comparison Flowbank vs Swissquote vs Degiro vs ... you can find here
Thanks Eric for the link with the comparison, I didn't know you had already done it.
Could you possibly answer my last question? Regarding free shares, with the Flow Bank deposit from 1000chf.
Thank you 🙂
very gladly 🙂
As far as I know, the share is only available once for new customers and not several times.
Love!