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Pillar 3a retirement planning with shares is high on Schwiizerfranke's list of favorites. This is because pillar 3a offers great opportunities to optimize your personal financial situation and even save on taxes. While some older 3a providers are starting to include "sustainability" for parts of their funds, Freya 3a has been fully committed to this from the beginning. We had already invited experts from Freya to Interviews about sustainable investment. At the time, her 3a investment solution was not yet on the market, but now things look different. Freya Savings 3a is live!
Schwiizerfranke has been invested since day 1 and we're a little proud of that too! 🙂 Find out what Freya 3a experiences we've had so far in this Freya experience report.
Co-Founder Freya Savings
Advisor investment solutions
Cantonal Bank of Graubünden
Freya 3a is the digital pension solution from Freya-Savings. The focus is clearly on "combining profit with meaning", i.e. the possibility of making a sustainable and yet profitable investment. Anyone who downloads the app to gain initial Freya experience will quickly notice that, in addition to the core of the sustainable pillar 3a, several other smart elements have been established here. Since we are invested since the launch in April 2021 and the still young solution for a sustainable pillar 3a is continuously optimized, we will also update this article continuously. Which Freya 3a experiences we would like to highlight in a particularly positive way:
What distinguishes a sustainable pillar 3a from a non-sustainable pillar 3a? And what are the differences between individual "sustainable" 3a solutions?
Pillar 3a is essentially a personal pension plan. Due to the low interest rate environment, the capital collected there is now increasingly being invested profitably in equities. This makes sense and we can definitely recommend. Now, it should perhaps be noted that money is never neutral. Where it is invested or provided, something is supported. For example, if we consciously invest our pension money in ecological companies, we can take care of the environment and make profits at the same time. Freya calls this "combining meaning and profit." If you don't pay attention to this, you invest the 3a money with other providers possibly in companies that you would not actually approve of.
When it comes to meaning, however, one should be careful, because while profit is clearly measurable, the measurability of meaning does not look quite so simple. Sustainability is also not the same Sustainability. Because the term is not defined and accordingly there are big differences when you look at sustainable 3rd pillars. For the sake of clarity, let us perhaps create two simplified 3a groups:
At the present time (spring 2021), we know of no other provider apart from Freya that is so committed to sustainable pillar 3a and thus falls into category two according to the above distinction. The difference between category 1 and 2 is considerable. Putting sustainability on the billboard does not make a measurable impact.
Sense and investment profiles at Freya
Anyone who downloads the Freya app and opens their account can choose from various sense and investment profiles. These are quasi focus areas in which your pension provision is subsequently invested sustainably. The weighting of the share quota is determined based on your risk profile. If you indicate, for example, that you would like to promote home ownership with your 3a, this will be taken into account accordingly. Regardless of which 2 of the 5 Sinn profiles you choose, the basis is always represented by broadly diversified investment products in order to limit the risk. The Sinn profiles are subdivided as follows:
For our Freya 3a experience report, for example, we chose the profiles "Climate Change & Natural Resources" and "Clean Energy & Green Infrastructure". After the first deposit, which can be made conveniently via QR code and even as a savings plan if desired, the money was automatically invested according to our profile. In the app, you can then see the weighting of the individual investment products, which are broken down into the selected categories (see above).
As with most providers, the Freya 3a fees are made up of various parts. The basic fee of 0.55% includes, for example, the custody account costs of the foundation, transaction costs or the contribution for the Freya Community Projects (Link) . Here, a part of the fees is used to support charitable projects.
In addition to the base fee, there are also the product costs of the funds, which are around 0.3%. Also completely transparent are charges such as stamp duties, which vary and add up to an average of around 0.1%. In total, the following fees can be listed: 0.55% + 0.3% + 0.1% = 0.95% Total fees per year. This definitely puts Freya in the segment of low-cost 3a providers. Bargain hunters will find cheaper providers, but probably no 3a provider who is fully committed to sustainable investment.
The Freya 3a funds of the investment strategies including all data are available on the homepage under Investments freely accessible. In our view, the transparency at this point is particularly positive, as it also makes it relatively easy to monitor the implementation of the sustainable investment strategy. Just one click on a fund in the list takes you to the "YourMoney" website where even more detailed information on the respective fund is available.
Here is an exemplary excerpt from the Freya 3a Fund investment strategy. The individual funds are shown with the respective ESG-rating and historical performance:
We can only write positive things for this Freya review so far. The Freya 3a app works very smoothly and has some exciting features that other providers in the field of digital pensions still completely lack (such as savings plan function, Tax calculator or QR deposit). Freya is also very exemplary transparent about the products and about the costs. The latter could be cheaper, but with less than 1% total fee you can't complain. We are looking forward to further news and especially to the projects of the Community AG!
How do you see the topic of provision and sustainability?
Leave us a comment there!
If you want to learn more about Freya Savings, or invest your 3rd pillar with them in a sustainable way, you can get to Freya 3a here:
**: The 50CHF is only valid for the first 200 customers who entered the code "CHFranke" when they successfully opened their Freya 3a account. This is an affiliate partnership.
Transparency note: This Freya 3a experience report was created in cooperation with Freya Savings. The content presentation and description has nevertheless been created independently and freely by Schwiizerfranke.
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2 responses
hey Eric, thanks for your article and personal review.
very much Roman! I am very curious where the Freya world is still developing and what other users will soon experience 🙂 so far: Great Job! 🙂