Fund account. Accumulate capital with investment funds.

When you invest in funds, you acquire units in the funds you select. These units will not be physically delivered to you. They are managed as credit items on your personal fund account, which is comparable to a bank account.

If you decide to regularly invest a certain amount in the funds you have chosen, you will have the basis for a fund savings plan. That's ideal, for example, for saving up capital in the long term and benefiting from potentially attractive returns.

You can also open a Helvetia fund account as a 3a fund account. That allows you to provide for retirement with tax benefits. You can deduct your annual investments from your taxable income – up to the maximum pillar 3a contribution set by the federal government – when filing your tax return. In doing so you actively reduce your taxes and provide for the long term too.

You decide yourself how long you will pay into your fund savings plan. Additional investments or a waiver of the annual payment are also possible. In principle, you can request a withdrawal of your 3b fund balance at any time. Even a partial withdrawal of your fund balance is no problem. The payout is always based on the current price of your fund units.

There are restrictions on withdrawals in the case of restricted pension provision, i.e. a 3a fund account. In such cases, you can make an ordinary withdrawal at the earliest five years before reaching OASI retirement age. Due to the federal tax privilege, early withdrawal is only possible in the following additional cases:

• For pension fund purchases
• If you leave Switzerland for good
• If you become self-employed
• If you begin drawing a full IV pension
• To purchase owner-occupied residential property or pay off a mortgage

No taxes are due on a payout from a 3b fund account. It is comparable to withdrawing cash from your bank account. However, you must declare the current value of your fund account at the end of the year as assets in your tax return.

You may deduct your annual investments in your 3a fund account from your taxes up to the applicable maximum for pillar 3a contributions. The payout of your fund balance is taxed once only – separately from your other income and at a reduced rate that differs from canton to canton. Please consult the tax office in the canton where you reside.

Fund-based saving for children is a particularly interesting option for parents, grandparents and godparents. In this way, capital can be accumulated in the long term from the time the child is born – e.g. as a gift on reaching adulthood, as start-up capital when moving out of the family home, or to finance a course of study.

When you invest directly in shares, you also take a direct stake in the company concerned. You virtually become a co-owner of this company. You also bear the entire risk of loss. Thus, in the event of bankruptcy, your shares may suddenly be worth nothing.

An investment fund can also be thought of as a basket containing many shares and other investment vehicles (e.g. bonds, real estate, etc.). So when you invest in an investment fund, you are investing simultaneously in all the investment vehicles it contains. If an individual share in your investment fund becomes worthless, the impact on the total value of the investment fund will probably be rather small.

When you invest in an investment fund, you spread the risks of your investment while benefiting from many opportunities for profit. Every investment fund pursues a specific investment goal. This then determines the composition of the fund. In order to achieve the investment goal in the long term, investment funds are managed by a professional fund management team.

The easiest way is to analyse and define your investment needs together with our insurance advisors. This allows us to develop the investment strategy that is right for you. Taking this investment strategy as a basis, we help you select suitable funds, thereby ensuring your investments are divided up in a way that makes sense.

The various funds weight the equity and bond components they contain in different ways. A smaller equity component can be expected to produce fewer fluctuations in value, while a larger equity component is likely to entail greater volatility. Accordingly, the investment risks and return opportunities vary too.

Ultimately, the investment funds you choose must not only match your investment strategy, but you must also be comfortable with them.

The units of an investment fund are subject to fluctuations in value and their prices vary accordingly.

With your fund savings plan, you regularly invest a constant amount in the fund of your choice. The advantage for you: you benefit from the cost-average effect. With the same amount, you buy lots of fund units when prices are low and few when prices are high.

This helps you to keep your investments within your budget. With payments that are always the same, you compensate for fluctuations in the value of fund units over the long term and avoid the problem of investing "at the wrong time".

Funds generally invest globally in various equities and other investment vehicles. It can thus be very difficult to check the sustainability of each individual investment. The basic problem: there is no uniform definition of sustainability.

The ESG criteria for companies provide guidance. Compliance with the ESG (environment, social, governance) criteria is checked by well-known rating agencies. Essentially, it is about where companies stand on ecology and the environment, their social responsibility and compliance management.

ESG criteria can also play a role in selecting sustainable investments. For example, companies can define certain exclusion criteria, such as the production of and trading in weapons.

Among other things, Helvetia Allegra funds also take ESG criteria into account when selecting the appropriate investment vehicles.

Helvetia offers the fund account in cooperation with various partners, in particular in the area of account and custody account management, pillar 3a and for the vested benefits solution:

• Account-managing/custodian bank: Lienhardt & Partner Privatbank Zürich AG
• Pension foundation: Unabhängige Vorsorgestiftung 3a Zürich
• Vested benefits foundation: Unabhängige Freizügigkeitsstiftung Schwyz