We are team of financial planning and investment management professionals who specialize in providing wealth management services to households in Switzerland and to those with cross-border financial interests. For American clients in Switzerland or other foreign countries, or clients with accounts in the United States, please visit our US site. For all other Swiss resident clients, who are not American, we work with you through our company White Lighthouse Investment Management Sarl located in Lausanne Switzerland.

Yes, we work with clients who have no cross-border planning needs. In order to be experts in cross-border issues, we have to be experts in domestic issues first. We can only be as good in cross-border advice as we are in domestic advice.

We specialize in cross-border advice and have a very deep understanding of the Swiss retirement and financial environments. We work with households in Switzerland and with cross-border financial interests. For American clients in Switzerland, or other foreign countries, or clients with accounts in the United States, please visit our US site. For all other Swiss resident clients, who are not Americans, we work with you through our company White Lighthouse Investment Management Sarl, located in Lausanne, Switzerland.

If you are not a Swiss resident and have no ties to Switzerland, please visit our US website.

We set our standards to the highest levels of competence, care, ethics and transparency in the financial services profession. We are US CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals and many of us hold multiple professional designations, including Enrolled Agent and Swiss CFP® credentials. We each devote hundreds of hours annually to deepening and updating our knowledge of US and Swiss investing, tax, retirement, estate, insurance and finance, to name some of the most common planning services our clients seek assistance with.

The Swiss tax and financial environments are constantly changing, affecting our clients’ lives in ever more challenging ways. By following these changes as, they take place, we anticipate their impact, the problems and opportunities that will result from them, and proactively and holistically advise clients. This approach relieves our clients from the burden of constantly having to figure out how the latest rule, regulation or law change will affect them, and we can help them take advantage of new opportunities and mitigate new risks cost effectively and with agility.

We work with most of our clients in ongoing, long-term advisory relationships.

We have four main service levels, with different annual fee minimums, aimed at accommodating the needs of clients at various life stages and different asset levels, with simpler to more complex financial planning and investment management needs. On a limited basis and dependent on capacity, we sometimes offer limited financial planning project engagements and hourly consultations.

White Lighthouse is a fee-only independent advisor (RIA), which means that we only receive compensation directly from our clients through quarterly invoices or payments for project work. Our fees are transparent, and our clients always know exactly how much our services cost. We never receive payments from custodians, banks, investment funds, other service firms we may refer client to or any other source.

We do not sell financial products, we are paid only for our advice and managing investments, and therefore we receive no commissions, referral fees or any other similar financial incentives from third parties. We believe that this model best aligns our interests with those of our clients allowing us to retain our Independence for the benefit of our clients. Our clients only engage us and are willing to pay our fees when we deliver advice that is valuable to them and which they believe improves their financial well-being.

In order to understand what an independent advisor is, it is first important to understand the four participants in a financial advisory relationship: you, the clients; the investment product providers; the broker-dealers and custodians; and the advisors. We find it helpful to view the financial services relationship as a triangle between the advisor, brokerage/custodian and investments, all interrelated and working in conjunction with the client, looking at the triangle from above.

Imagine an equilateral triangle. On the bottom-left corner of the triangle is the investment products provider. This is the financial institution that sets up and manages investment funds, including Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), mutual funds, etc. Unless an investor only holds individual stocks or bonds, they will purchase shares or interests in a fund from one of these institutions. BlackRock (iShares) and Vanguard are the two largest and very well-known examples of investment fund providers.

On the bottom-right corner of the triangle is the broker-dealer, which is often also the custodian. The custodian is the financial institution that holds the client’s investment assets. It is the safe keeper of the funds purchased from the investment fund company. Typically, the custodian is also the broker-dealer that purchases and sells the clients investments on the different stock exchanges. Broker-dealers can also trade individual stocks and bonds in the USA and, sometimes, in foreign exchanges. Charles Schwab and Co. Inc, Pershing, Interactive Brokers and E-Trade are several well-known examples of US broker-dealers and custodians, and Swissquote is a very well-known one in Switzerland.

Finally, at the top of the triangle sits the individual and independent advisor. The individual advisor is the person or team who has the relationship with you, the client, and who provides investment and financial planning advice to you. When clients retain the services of an advisor, they generally expect the advisor to select and purchase (and sell), through a broker, the right investments to meet their financial goals.

Individual advisors can work at Registered Independent Advisors (RIA)s or at other financial institutions. RIAs are not tied to any one custodian or fund family and can choose the investment solutions that they believe can best help their clients meet those financial goals. Individual advisors working at RIAs are held to a fiduciary standard, which requires them to provide investment advice that is in the best interest of their clients. Advisors at other financial institutions may or may not be held to a fiduciary standard. Many individual advisors at RIAs hold professional credentials such as the ones mentioned in question 2 above, because they believe that the professional training required to obtain and maintain these credentials will better qualify them to provide competent advice at the fiduciary level.

When an advisor is not independent, the individual financial advisor is typically employed by the financial institution that is also the custodian or a related party to the custodian. This advisor usually sells products, such as funds, which may also be managed by the same institution or a related party. Under this model, the advisor, investments and custodian are housed in the same or related financial institutions. These advisors may be held to a fiduciary standard but may also be held to the lower standard of suitability, which allows the advisor to recommend investments to clients even when a more suitable (or less expensive) investment that could better meet their needs exists. When they are not independent, advisors are more limited in the advice and solutions they can offer their clients, and they can be encouraged, through commissions and other types of financial incentives, to give preference to certain investments over others, which can create challenging conflicts of interest.

Although conflicts of interest cannot ever be fully eliminated, advisors who choose to provide services as fee-only RIAs do so because they believe that by disclosing and minimizing conflicts of interest and by expanding the universe of custodians and investments they can choose for their clients, they can better serve their clients’ needs.

As a service to the community, we offer no-cost or low-cost, no-sales educational presentations and seminars to non-profit groups and other organizations several times a year. These presentations are aimed at providing trustworthy financial education to the members of various groups for free or at a very low cost. In the past, we have presented for Americans Citizens Abroad, American Women’s Clubs, EPFL, Google, Roche, Nestle and others. If you are interested in scheduling an educational seminar or presentation, please e-mail us at education@white-lighthouse.com.

Additionally, the Articles and Presentations sections in our website contains valuable information about many common US and Swiss cross-border issues. This database can be a great resource for anyone looking for free, general guidance from a reliable source. If you use our articles database, please keep in mind that it provides general advice that may or may not apply to your situation. Details matter. Obtaining advice that specifically applies to you will generally require that you retain the services of a professional.