finpension: how the referral works

What is finpension?

finpension is a Swiss financial company specialising in pillar 3a, the voluntary tax-advantaged retirement-savings layer that complements the mandatory first and second pillars of the Swiss pension system. Their flagship product is a 3a account with a securities-based investment strategy: rather than parking 3a contributions in a low-yielding cash account at a cantonal bank, finpension holders elect a strategy with up to 99% equity exposure, implemented through low-cost index funds with transparent holdings.

The legal wrapper is a Swiss pension foundation supervised under Swiss occupational-pension law, with custody of the underlying securities at a FINMA-supervised Swiss custodian. Users do not become bank customers — they become beneficiaries of a foundation that holds securities on their behalf inside the 3a regime. That structural distinction matters for tax (3a contributions are deductible up to the annual ceiling) and for protection (segregated custody rather than a deposit guarantee).

A note on categorisation. We list finpension under “brokers” on this site for navigability, because the user-facing experience — choosing a strategy, viewing fund-level holdings, monitoring performance — resembles a self-directed investment account more than a traditional pension fund. The accurate legal description is a 3a pension foundation. A future re-categorisation pass may move it into a dedicated investing or pensions hub.

How the referral works

Using the referral code 9CNBYC at sign-up enrols the user in the active referral promo. finpension typically credits the bonus as a CHF 25 fee credit applied against the foundation administrative fee over time, rather than as a cash bonus. Practically, that means the small flat administrative fee finpension charges is offset for the equivalent number of months until the credit is consumed. The strategy fees on the underlying funds (the TER) are unaffected by the credit; those are the manager’s costs and are passed through directly.

The code must be entered during onboarding. As with most Swiss-foundation referrals, attribution is not retroactive — entering the code after the account is open does not work.

Who finpension is for

finpension fits Swiss residents who already use, or want to start using, the 3a tax-advantaged retirement layer and who want a higher equity allocation than the typical cantonal-bank 3a account, which often defaults to 25–45% equities. For long-horizon savers the difference in expected returns is meaningful, and the low TER on the index strategies keeps a larger share of those returns with the saver.

It is not a fit for non-Swiss residents — the 3a regime is purely Swiss — and it is not a fit for savers who want a fully cash 3a for short-term parking. The whole product premise is a securities-based, equity-tilted strategy held inside a 3a wrapper for retirement.

Regulatory posture

finpension’s 3a product is a Swiss pension foundation supervised under Swiss federal occupational-pension law, with oversight by OAK BV (the federal commission for occupational-pension supervision). The underlying securities are held with a FINMA-supervised Swiss custodian as segregated holdings. The foundation’s assets and the user’s holdings are legally separated from the foundation’s operating balance sheet, which is the standard pension-foundation safeguard.

3a contributions are tax-deductible in Switzerland up to the annual federal limit, which is published each year. Withdrawals before retirement are restricted to a defined list of grounds — home purchase as a primary residence, definitive emigration from Switzerland, becoming self-employed, transfer to a second-pillar plan — and trigger a Swiss capital-gains/withholding settlement at withdrawal.

Things to watch for

• Strategy choice. The high-equity strategies historically have the higher long-run expected return and the higher year-to-year drawdown. The ergonomics of the dashboard make it easy to re-allocate, but doing so during a drawdown is the classic mistake. Pick a strategy you are willing to hold for decades.
• The CHF 25 bonus is a fee credit. It is not a cash transfer.
• 3a funds are locked. Treat the contribution as a long-term commitment, not as a savings account you can dip into.

Conclusion

finpension is a sensible pick for Swiss residents who want to maximise the long-horizon return of their 3a layer without paying the conservative-allocation premium that cantonal-bank 3a accounts often carry. The CHF 25 fee credit attached to code 9CNBYC is small, but the structural benefit — a transparent, low-TER, high-equity 3a wrapper — is the actual reason to sign up. Tap the link, enter the code, complete the onboarding, and the credit is applied against ongoing administrative fees.