After moving to CH, is it mandatory that you transfer the previous pension fund into your new Swiss fund? Or am I allowed to keep two in different countries? Transfer has turned out to be much more complex than I thought. What are the pros and cons of not transferring?
You can leave them where they are, as long as your pension provider allows you to.
I left mine in the UK for a while before bringing it, but didn't have to.
Why would it possibly be mandatory? Did you have your foreign Bank accounts seized when you came to CH?
More to the point, why would you want to?
Just check when the best time to bring them is. Currency risk one thing that comes to mind.
I would leave the foreign pension funds where they are, unless you really need the cash. Also, there might be a penalty for early withdrawal.
I still have my Swiss pension fund, although I moved away almost 3 years ago.
Where did you go? You can probably take it entirely as cash even in many EU countries despite what people in the know will tell you.
I am in the USA. I opted to leave the pension chuffs where they are because I did not need that cash, and did not want to pay the withdrawal penalty that I was told there would be. Plus, I like the idea of a little nest egg on the other side of the world in a stable-ish country - one never knows.
I did close every other Swiss bank account/investment/what have you because I did not want to deal with FBAR going forward (and I wanted that cash for an investment here).
I just had a very low withholding tax for the entire Pillar 2, no penalty as such.
Some pension funds, Julius Baer, for example, make it mandatory that you not hold any other pension funds, or you're penalized on benefit entitlements. No Besides reason #1, I also have more faith in professional management of Swiss pension funds than other countries where they just keep large portion of it in low yield government debt. I'm happy to answer all questions, if I can have some relevant info on the original question I asked. Otherwise, let's not have digressing posts about "leaving CH", when the question is about "entering CH".
The answer to your original question is (again) no, it's not mandatory to transfer foreign pensions here.
Check again with Julius Bär. It would be impossible for them to know whether you had any pension assets elsewhere unless you told them, and even then, why would they care? Their job is to make as good a return on your assets as they can. How much of that you actually receive after they take their cut is another story.
Wow, really? Have you not been following the public tirade against pension companies here? Pillar 2 pension funds must provide a federally mandated return to their investors (currently it's somewhere between 1 and 2% p.a.) and that's just what most of them do -- provide the legal minimum. The rest goes into reserves against that rainy day when the fund manager might not be able to scrape up a 1% return on its investment pot. You may have to hunt far and wide to find an employer who contributes to a Pillar 2 fund that returns all earnings to its members.
What has this got to do with the "bring it to Switzerland point"?
Don't invest with a crap manager is pretty universal; and actually most Swiss pension funds are significantly invested in low yield debt and give a return of 1% or so.
You won't win any friends asking people to "stay on track" - this isn't a customer service line or an advisor you're paying for, and anyway it's complete pointless on EF - dodgyken will probably now post a dodgy off-topic image to make the point