How to open multiple pillar 3a VIAC accounts — Tutorial

To optimize your tax situation as much as possible with your pillar 3a — i.e. to save tens of thousands of CHF — you need to open a total of five. I explain the why and how of this strategy in this article.

As a reminder, before this article, I only had one pillar 3a at VIAC with the Global 100 strategy.

So I had to open 4 new pillar 3a contracts at VIAC. And it was much simpler than I would have thought.

Step 1: Create four new portfolios at VIAC

A VIAC portfolio corresponds to a separate pillar 3a contract.
After a few clicks, I was happy to have my five 3a pillars as desired:

Let's go to create a new pillar 3a portfolio at VIAC

I'm quite classic in VIAC portfolio naming as you can see :)

Selection of the Global strategy to be diversified as much as possible in terms of the companies in which I invest all over the world

Selection of the Global 100 strategy to invest 97% of all my pillar 3a cash in equities (i.e. I take maximum risk but it's under control because I do it for the long term — i.e. more than 8-10 years)

Validation of the legal pop-up by clicking on 'OK'

Entering the code received by SMS to finalize the creation of my new pillar 3a VIAC

And it's already over! Here we are with a second 3a VIAC pillar portfolio created

Then simply repeat these steps three more times to arrive with the five desired VIAC portfolios

It’s child’s play! It took me more time to make screenshots than to create the portfolios :D

Step 2: Retrieve the payment information for my new VIAC’s pillars 3a

Once the opening of my new VIAC pillars 3a was done, I went to retrieve the information to make the money payments on each of them:

Go to the 'Deposit' section of the VIAC platform

Choose the VIAC portfolio for which you want payment information

Here is the payment information for my portfolio 2 from VIAC. I can also get them in PDF format by clicking on the button below

The PDF with the payment information for your VIAC pillar 3a account looks like this

The PDF with the payment information for your VIAC pillar 3a account looks like this (bis)

The VIAC team did a really good job of simplifying the interface. You can find all the information where you look for it.

Step 3: Delete the standing order on my first VIAC pillar 3a portfolio

As explained in this article, I will now fill up my four new VIAC pillars 3a before transferring any new money to my current one. And this, in order to optimize my Swiss taxation to the maximum.

So my next step was to delete my existing standing order that was transferring money from my Swiss Zak bank account to my current VIAC pillar 3a portfolio:

'Wire transfers' view in the Zak mobile app (my Swiss bank)

List of my standing orders in my Zak mobile app

Removing the standing order to my current VIAC pillar 3a account

Confirmation of deletion of my standing order to VIAC in my Zak mobile app

Standing order to my current pillar 3a account deleted

List of my standing orders without the one to my VIAC pillar 3a

That’s done!

Let’s move on to the next step.

Step 4: Create four new standing orders to my four new VIAC pillar 3a portfolios

Next, all I had to do was create four new standing orders in my Zak ebanking mobile app to each of my four VIAC’s 3a pillars.
For the record, it’s actually only the ISR reference number that changes between each portfolio; the rest of the information remains the same.

'Wire transfers' view in the Zak mobile app (my Swiss bank)

Entering the VIAC account number

Entering the VIAC account number and my unique VIAC pillar 3a reference number

I indicate that I wish to pay CHF 143 from the beginning of February, in a recurring manner each month (= [6'883-568]/11/4)

Validation of the new standing order in my Zak mobile app

Validation of the new standing order in my Zak mobile app via mTAN SMS code

New standing order successfully created in my Zak mobile app

And here is my new standing order for my first new VIAC pillar 3a portfolio

And I repeated the operation three more times to achieve this result in my mobile app Zak

Note: I have already made a payment of CHF 568 in January 2021. As legally the maximum amount pillar 3a in 2021 is CHF 6'883, I took the remaining amount CHF 6'315 (= 6'883 - 568) and divided it in eleven months, then in 4 portfolios, which gives me the CHF 143. From 2022, I will do the same mathematical operation again, but over 12 months.

VIAC promo code

And that’s it :)
So here I am, ready to save several thousands of CHF on my taxes when we withdraw this pillar 3a from VIAC!

As a reminder, this method works with any 3a pillar. So make sure you set it up as soon as possible in your life to optimize your Swiss taxes ;)

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