VZ VermögensZentrum

The coin table of VZ Depotbank lists Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Litecoin, Uniswap, Aave, Chainlink, Polygon, Compound, SushiSwap and Bitcoin Cash, and the crypto page names Solana as well. Most coins trade against CHF, USD and EUR, while Compound and SushiSwap trade only against US dollars. Every trade must be worth at least 1,000 in the chosen currency, and the trading unit of bitcoin is 0.0001 BTC.

Orders go through the VZ Finanzportal from Monday to Friday between 0:30 and 23:30. On bank working days the trading desk takes orders by phone between 8:00 and 18:00, and clients can change or cancel orders there as well.

An online crypto trade below CHF 100,000 costs 0.90 percent with a minimum of CHF 39, and the same trade by phone costs 0.90 percent with a minimum of CHF 100. Above CHF 100,000 the fee falls to 0.70 percent for both channels. For custody, VZ Depotbank charges an administration fee of 0.15 percent per quarter, which is 0.60 percent a year, and each account costs CHF 10 per quarter.

Clients can stake ether from 0.001 ETH with an expected gross return of up to 3 percent a year, and Solana from 1 SOL with up to 6 percent. VZ Depotbank pays the rewards at the start of each following month and adds them to the staked amount. It keeps 20 percent of the rewards as its fee and charges it in Swiss francs.

Unstaking usually takes 2 to 4 days for Solana and 3 to 10 days for ether, and longer when many clients unstake at once. Clients place staking orders through their contact person at VZ Depotbank.

VZ Depotbank keeps the coins in crypto custody wallets at selected third-party institutions that it reviews regularly, and it manages the keys, so clients handle no keys themselves. A purchase is credited directly to the custody account and settled through the currency account, and clients make no prepayment. When a client sells, the coins stay with VZ Depotbank instead of moving to an exchange first, so the bankruptcy of a broker or exchange causes the client no loss.

Clients can transfer the offered coins in and out of the account. VZ Depotbank checks each incoming transfer first, and it sends coins only to wallets that belong to the client.

In November 2021 VZ VermögensZentrum and Sygnum Bank announced a partnership for digital assets, so that VZ clients could buy, hold and trade leading cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether. Marc Weber, the CEO of VZ Depotbank, said at the time that the partnership let VZ build the views of Sygnum into its own products. Sygnum serves VZ through its business-to-business offer for banks.

VZ VermögensZentrum AG has its contact address at Gotthardstrasse 6, 8002 Zurich, and its parent company VZ Holding AG is listed on SIX Swiss Exchange. The founders started VZ in 1993 to make the financial industry more transparent, and today VZ advises on retirement, investments, mortgages, taxes, insurance and estates. VZ sells no investment products of its own and earns its money from advisory fees and management fees.