Best way to get a short term loan

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
1
Hi all,

Long story short, I may need to get a short term loan of about 50k (3-6 months) for the purchase of a car from Germany.

What is the easiest / cheapest way to finance this? I have a large portfolio in Swissquote, can I get a lombard loan on it maybe?

(p.s I dont really want to go into the risks of importing from Germany, taking debt, I have thought through and have good reasons for all!)

2
Have you asked Swissquote? They fancy themselves as a bank these days...

3
If Swissquote has margin accounts and assuming your loan is within the allowed leverage of your portfolio size, maybe you can simply take on margin loan and withdraw it? This would likely give you the best possible rate (except 0% loan from a friend) for a short term loan. I am not sure if all brokers allow the withdrawal of the margin loaned funds, but some definitely do

4
Swissquote don't allow a Lombard loan to be withdrawn, it can only be used as leverage to buy more investments.

5
Could you do a personal loan with a friend who's got the cash?

With a reasonable interest rate applied.

6
Interactive Brokers does lombard loans, you can simply withdraw up to your limit and transfer to your connected bank account. It has served us very well in past.

7
I asked them earlier this year and they said I could do what I like with the money.

8
We were in a similar situation last year, i.e. we wanted to borrow money to buy a car with cash, and we would pay off the loan quickly. We were happy with the terms and conditions of Cembra: low interest rate and the ability to pay off early to save a bit. (i.e. penalties for paying early more than offset what we would have paid in interest)

The big downside is we can’t get them to leave us alone now: cold calling and junk mail all the time, always with the motivation to get us to borrow again. We aren’t even tempted, but it is annoying.

9
That directly contradicts their loan agreement:

3.

c. Use of the collateral loan facility

The Facility may only be used by the Client in the form of a debit balance on a current account denominated in Swiss francs (CHF), US dollars (USD) or euro (EUR). The sole purpose of the Limit is to permit the Client to acquire securities via the Bank and it may not be used by the Client for any other purpose.

10
It certainly seems so. Maybe the rules changed, or the person at Swissquote advising me didn't know what they were talking about.