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frankly is the pillar 3a app of Zürcher Kantonalbank, and it now holds more than CHF 5.4 billion for over 140’000 people. The all-in fee is 0.43% a year, charged on your securities and nothing at all on your cash, which makes frankly cheaper than finpension for anyone sitting mostly in cash and dearer for everyone who invests. This review shows what it costs in francs, the eight things the word “all-in” quietly leaves out, and who should pick something else.
A genuinely well-built app whose main selling point is who stands behind it. If that matters to you, frankly is the best version of it, and you pay for it: 0.43% against finpension’s 0.39%, a 95% equity ceiling, sixteen fixed Swisscanto products and no strategy of your own. One real advantage the comparison tables miss: frankly charges nothing on the cash part of your 3a, where finpension charges its full fee. For anyone actually invested, finpension or True Wealth still gets you more for less.
What frankly is
frankly launched on 1 April 2020 as Zürcher Kantonalbank’s answer to VIAC and finpension: a fully digital pillar 3a, joined in 2023 by a vested benefits product and a browser version. It has worked. ZKB’s own 2025 reporting puts frankly past CHF 5.4 billion under management and over 140’000 customers, which makes it one of the largest digital 3a providers in the country.
One thing worth getting right from the start: frankly is a trademark, not a company. It is the brand under which the Zürcher Kantonalbank Savings 3 Pension Foundation and the ZKB Vested Benefits Foundation sell pension products. Your counterparty is that foundation, not the bank. What the bank does is stand behind it, and the canton of Zurich in turn guarantees ZKB’s non-subordinated liabilities by law. If “who is holding my pension money” is your first question, frankly has the most reassuring answer in the category. Almost everything else about it is mid-table.
The 0.43% all-in fee, examined
frankly charges 0.43% a year on your securities and nothing on your cash. Both halves of that sentence matter, and most comparisons only report the first. The fee has come down over time, from 0.45% in 2023 to 0.44% in early 2025 to 0.43% now, which frankly attributes to a community discount that grows as the customer base does. The discount tiers are only visible inside the app, so I cannot show you the schedule.
The word “all-in” is doing some work, though. frankly’s own FAQ lists eight things it does not cover: issue and redemption charges on the indexed products, bid-ask spreads, commissions, taxes, duties, the TER of exchange-traded real estate funds inside the products, fees for re-ordering documents and for tracing dormant assets, and “special expenses” charged at standard bank rates if you generate a lot of correction postings. In frankly’s favour: the flat administrative fee genuinely is 0.0%, and the product TER runs a modest 0.01% to 0.05%.
The second thing to know is what you are buying. Ten of the fifteen securities products are actively managed Swisscanto funds, which frankly says are “designed to beat the market”. Five are index-tracked. Paying an active manager inside a product you chose for its low fee is the kind of quiet drag this site exists to point at.
The four basis points are not the real story, and they do not all point the same way. finpension’s 0.39% genuinely includes fund costs, because its funds run at 0.00% to 0.02% TER, so on an invested balance it beats frankly by more than the headline gap suggests. But finpension charges that 0.39% on your whole 3a balance including cash, and frankly charges nothing on cash. Hold a mostly-cash 3a and frankly is the cheaper of the two. Invest it, and finpension wins again.
What frankly costs on CHF 50’000
CHF 50’000 in Extreme 95 Index, held for a year.
All-in fee: 0.43% of CHF 50’000 = CHF 215. Product TER at the top of frankly’s stated 0.01% to 0.05% range: about CHF 25. Spreads and issue charges on top, which nobody can quote in advance. Call it CHF 240 a year, plus trading costs.
The same CHF 50’000 at finpension, all invested: 0.39% flat with fund costs inside it, so about CHF 195. At VIAC on the Global 100 strategy, 0.41% total including product fees, about CHF 205. At True Wealth, no management fee on 3a at all, roughly 0.14% of product costs, about CHF 70, though that one needs a different conversation about what you are getting.
Now hold the same CHF 50’000 in cash instead. frankly charges nothing and pays you 0.15%. finpension charges its 0.39%, about CHF 195, and pays 0.00%. That is the one scenario where frankly is the cheapest option on this page.
Figures read from frankly’s all-in fee FAQ and pillar 3a page, and from each competitor’s own pricing page, all checked 22 September 2026.
Strategies: Swisscanto only, 95% ceiling
You pick a risk level, then a flavour. Five levels, Light 15, Gentle 25, Moderate 45, Strong 75 and Extreme 95, each available as actively managed “Sustainable”, actively managed “Responsible” or “Index”. That is fifteen securities products plus a cash account, all of them Swisscanto, which is ZKB’s own fund brand. The number in the name is the equity weighting, so Extreme 95 targets 95% equities. There is no custom strategy building and no choice of fund provider.
| Product | Target equities | Sustainable | Responsible | Index |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash account | 0% | No all-in fee, 0.15% interest | ||
| Light 15 | 15% | Active | Active | Index |
| Gentle 25 | 25% | Active | Active | Index |
| Moderate 45 | 45% | Active | Active | Index |
| Strong 75 | 75% | Active | Active | Index |
| Extreme 95 | 95% | Active | Active | Index |
If you do choose frankly, take the Index line. It is the only one of the three not making an active bet with your pension money, and that drag compounds exactly like the fees this site exists to minimise.
Two caveats the comparison tables leave out. 95 is a target weighting, not a hard daily ceiling: frankly says Extreme 95 Index invests “primarily” in equities and may hold other things for optimisation. And Extreme 95 is not available on vested benefits at all, in any of the three flavours, so the ceiling on a frankly Freizügigkeit account is lower again.
Who frankly is actually for
Choose frankly if you want a cantonal bank with a state guarantee culture standing behind your third pillar, you already bank with ZKB and like seeing frankly inside ZKB e-banking, and you accept paying a little more for that. Within those constraints it is a polished, legitimate product.
Skip frankly if you are optimising for wealth at retirement. finpension is cheaper with fund costs truly included and goes to 100% equities; VIAC is cheaper on most strategies, pays more on cash and includes free life cover; True Wealth bundles 3a with a strong free-assets robo. All three out-deliver frankly on the things that compound.
frankly vested benefits, the half of the app nobody reviews
frankly is not only a 3a app. Since 2023 it has sold a vested benefits (Freizügigkeit) account too, for the money that has to go somewhere when you leave a job and are not joining a new pension fund straight away. It is the same app and the same Swisscanto range, with four differences that matter and that no comparison table I have seen mentions.
Vested benefits at frankly is not the same product as the 3a. Twelve investment products rather than fifteen, because Extreme 95 is not offered. Cash pays 0.01%, not the 0.15% you get on 3a cash, a fifteenfold difference on money that often sits uninvested for months. Early withdrawal for home ownership costs CHF 200, where the same withdrawal from the 3a is free. And you can hold at most two vested benefits accounts per foundation.
The 0.43% all-in fee is the same, and it is still charged on securities only. If you are parking vested benefits at frankly and leaving it in cash while you decide, you are paying nothing and earning almost nothing. That is a fair deal for a few weeks and a poor one for a few years.
Opening an account with frankly
There is no minimum. frankly’s own FAQ puts it plainly: you can start from as little as CHF 1. That is worth saying next to True Wealth’s CHF 1’000 for a 3a and CHF 8’500 for free assets, because it removes the most common reason people put off opening a third pillar at all. You can hold up to five frankly 3a accounts, which is the standard trick for staggering withdrawals across tax years later on.
- Download the app, or use the browser version. frankly has run on computer and tablet since February 2023, so you are not forced onto a phone.
- Scan your ID. Swiss residence is required. The identity check is the only part that involves waiting.
- Answer the risk questions. These set a recommended risk level. You can move it up or down within the limits the questionnaire allows.
- Choose your product. One of the sixteen in the table above. If you are here for the low fee, choose an Index line rather than Sustainable or Responsible.
- Pay in before the end of December. A 3a contribution only counts for the tax year in which it actually arrives.
Answer the risk questions honestly rather than optimistically. Anyone who would sell after a 10% fall has no business in Extreme 95, and the questionnaire cannot tell the difference between conviction and bravado.
Logging in and funding the account
Login is app-based with biometrics. You fund the account by bank transfer using a personal reference, or with a prefilled transfer order if you are moving an existing 3a across from another provider. If you already bank with ZKB, frankly appears natively inside ZKB e-banking and mobile banking, which is the one genuine convenience frankly offers that the independent apps cannot.
One practical note if you are transferring an existing pillar 3a: the receiving provider drives the process, so you start it at frankly rather than at your old provider, and the money moves as a pension transfer rather than a withdrawal. It does not touch your annual contribution limit.
Is frankly safe, and who actually holds your money
This is frankly’s entire pitch, so it deserves more than a line in an FAQ. The chain is: you, then a ZKB pension foundation, then either a deposit held by that foundation at Zürcher Kantonalbank if you are in cash, or units in a Swisscanto investment group if you are invested. ZKB itself benefits from a statutory guarantee from the canton of Zurich covering all non-subordinated liabilities, and the bank pays the canton an annual fee for it. ZKB’s equity was around CHF 15.7 billion at the end of 2025.
What I will not tell you, because nobody publishes it. I looked for a stated deposit-protection ceiling for a frankly 3a cash balance on both frankly.ch and zkb.ch and found none: no esisuisse figure, no “privileged deposit up to CHF 100’000” statement, nothing on frankly’s own security page. Several comparison sites assert one. I am not going to repeat a number I cannot source. What is sourced is the chain above, and it is a strong one.
The honest framing is this: every regulated Swiss 3a foundation is supervised and none of them is a casino. The ZKB name buys you a state-guaranteed bank at the end of the chain rather than a smaller private one. Whether that is worth four basis points a year for thirty years is a question about how you sleep, not about arithmetic.
App, platform and customer service
The app is the best thing about frankly and it is not close. Onboarding is fast, the interface is clean, and the inline edit controls on the review screen let you fix a wrong entry without restarting a flow. Since February 2023 there has been a full browser version, so you are not locked to a phone. Support runs on a freephone number, 0800 320 000, which is more than most app-only providers offer.
What it does not have is depth. There is no strategy builder, no choice of fund house, no individual securities, and no crypto, which frankly confirms it does not offer “at present”. If you want to see and change what you own at the line-item level, this is the wrong app and True Wealth or finpension is the right one.
Criticism: what frankly gets wrong
Three things, and one of them is a straightforward failure of housekeeping on frankly’s own site.
- frankly’s own pages contradict each other on the voucher. On the same referral FAQ page, the step-by-step says your friend saves CHF 35 and the promo box lower down says CHF 25. Both language versions carry the same contradiction. Separately, frankly’s public voucher page still advertises a code with a footnote saying it is valid until 31 December 2025, which was nine months ago.
- The English site is stale against the German one. The German investment-strategies FAQ, updated 6 August 2026, says fifteen investment products. Its English twin still says thirteen. If you are an English speaker relying on frankly’s own English pages, you are reading an older version of the truth.
- The community discount is unverifiable from outside. frankly says the fee falls as the customer base grows and that is clearly true historically, 0.45% to 0.44% to 0.43%. But the tiers are only visible inside the app, so nobody can check what the next step is or when it triggers.
None of these is a reason to avoid the product. They are a reason to check figures at frankly’s German pages rather than its English ones, and not to plan around a voucher until you have seen it applied.
frankly vs finpension, VIAC and True Wealth
| frankly | finpension | VIAC | True Wealth | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Headline fee | 0.43% | 0.39% | 0.00% to 0.44% total | 0.0% management |
| Charged on cash? | No | Yes | No | No management fee |
| Fund costs included? | Admin 0.0%, TER 0.01% to 0.05% sits outside | Yes, fully | Yes, “incl. product fees” | No, about 0.14% on top |
| Interest on 3a cash | 0.15% | 0.00%, SNB-linked | 0.20% | 0.35% |
| Minimum | CHF 1 | CHF 1 | First CHF 8’500 free | CHF 1’000 |
| Read more | this page | finpension review | VIAC review | True Wealth review |
Every figure in that table was read from the provider’s own pricing page on 22 September 2026, not from a comparison site. The full picture on all of them, including the providers not listed here, is on my pillar 3a comparison.
frankly comparison
| frankly | finpension | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual fee + fund costs | 0.43% + 0.01–0.05% | 0.39% |
| Parallel 3a accounts | 5 | 5 |
| Interest on uninvested cash | 0.15% | 0.00% (tied to the SNB rate, never below 0%) |
| Who holds your 3a money | Zürcher Kantonalbank; Sparen 3 pension foundation of ZKB | finpension 3a Retirement Savings Foundation; custody at UBS and ZKB (Swisscanto) |
| Notes | All-in fee 0.43%; fund costs of 0.01–0.05% sit inside the fund prices. The highest-equity product is Extreme 95. | One flat fee with the fund costs included; nothing is charged on top. |
| Reader deal | – | CHF 25 fee credit with code HEROBB |
| My rating | ★ 3.5 | ★ 4.7 |
| Full review | – | Read the full finpension review → |
Checked at source: frankly 23 September 2026 · finpension 23 September 2026
What other users say
frankly’s Google listing showed 4.6 out of 5 from 158 reviews when I checked on 22 September 2026, which is high for a financial product and consistent with the app being the strong part of the offer. frankly also advertises a Handelszeitung pillar 3a test from June 2024 placing it in the top ten providers for five-year performance. Past performance rankings over a single five-year window tell you very little about the next thirty years, so treat that one as marketing rather than evidence.
The complaints that recur are about the things this review has already covered: the narrow product range, and the gap between the phrase “all-in” and the list of things the fee excludes.
frankly pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
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My third pillar rules
- Work out whether your 3a is mostly cash or mostly invested before comparing fees. It changes the answer. frankly charges nothing on cash and finpension charges 0.39% on it. On an invested balance that reverses.
- Fees compound harder than brand names. Four basis points, plus spreads, plus the drag of an actively managed fund, over thirty years, is real money out of your retirement.
- If you stay with frankly, take an Index line. Do not pay an active manager inside a product you chose because it was cheap.
- Pay in before the end of December. The 2026 maximum is CHF 7’258 if you are in a pension fund, or 20% of income up to CHF 36’288 if you are not. New for the 2026 tax year: you can now buy back missed contributions from 2025 onwards, up to ten years back, but only once the current year is fully paid.
- Do not buy a safety claim you cannot check. No Swiss 3a provider, frankly included, publishes a deposit-protection ceiling for 3a cash. Read what the provider actually states, not what a comparison site infers.
- Re-check yearly. frankly’s fee falls as it grows, and my pillar 3a comparison tracks every provider at source.
My verdict on frankly
Three and a half stars, and the half-star hesitation is about the product range rather than the quality. frankly is the most polished pillar 3a app in Switzerland, it is run by a foundation with a state-guaranteed cantonal bank behind it, it has no minimum, and it charges nothing on the cash you have not invested yet. For a first third pillar, opened by somebody who wants the decision to be over in ten minutes, that is a perfectly good answer.
What stops it going higher is that the things you are paying the extra for do not compound. Sixteen fixed products, ten of them actively managed, a 95% ceiling, and a word, “all-in”, that turns out to exclude eight separate cost types. finpension is cheaper on any invested balance with fund costs genuinely inside the fee. VIAC pays more on cash and goes to 100% equities. True Wealth charges no management fee on 3a at all. If you are optimising the number at the end, one of those three is your answer.
Use frankly if you want a cantonal bank at the end of the chain and you are content to pay a little for it, or if your 3a will sit largely in cash for a while. Otherwise, do the comparison first: every Swiss 3a provider, fees read from their own pricing pages.
The app is free to download and there is no minimum, so you can open a frankly 3a from CHF 1 without moving anything you already hold elsewhere. If the ZKB backing is what you are after, test it with one year’s contribution before you transfer old assets across. And if you have not compared the alternatives yet, do that first: this difference compounds for decades.
frankly FAQ
Is frankly safe?
Your counterparty is the Zürcher Kantonalbank Savings 3 Pension Foundation, not the bank itself. Uninvested cash is deposited by the foundation with ZKB, and the canton of Zurich guarantees ZKB’s non-subordinated liabilities by law. Invested money sits in Swisscanto investment groups. Note that neither frankly nor ZKB publishes a deposit-protection ceiling for 3a cash, so treat any specific figure you read elsewhere with care.
What does frankly really cost?
0.43% a year, charged on your securities only and not on cash. On CHF 50’000 invested that is about CHF 215, plus roughly CHF 25 of product TER, plus spreads. frankly’s own FAQ lists eight things the all-in fee excludes: issue and redemption charges on indexed products, bid-ask spreads, commissions, taxes, duties, the TER of exchange-traded real estate funds, document re-ordering and dormant-asset tracing, and special expenses at standard bank rates.
Is frankly only for pillar 3a?
No. frankly has sold a vested benefits (Freizügigkeit) account since 2023, with twelve investment products rather than fifteen. Extreme 95 is not available on it, and vested-benefits cash pays 0.01% against 0.15% on 3a cash. Early withdrawal for home ownership costs CHF 200 on vested benefits and nothing on the 3a.
Which bank is behind frankly?
Zürcher Kantonalbank. frankly is a registered trademark rather than a company: it is the brand under which ZKB’s Savings 3 Pension Foundation and Vested Benefits Foundation sell pension products, and the investment products are Swisscanto, which is ZKB’s own fund brand.
Which frankly strategy should I pick?
An Index line at the highest risk level your time horizon genuinely supports. Ten of the fifteen securities products are actively managed Swisscanto funds designed, in frankly’s words, to beat the market. That is an active bet stacked on top of the fee you are already paying.
Is there a frankly voucher code?
frankly runs its own referral scheme: you get CHF 25 credited against your fees for each friend who joins. Be careful reading their page, because it contradicts itself on what your friend gets, saying CHF 35 in the step-by-step and CHF 25 in the promo box, in both languages. ZKB’s own pages currently push CHF 35 codes. I have no affiliate relationship with frankly and no code to give you.
frankly or VIAC?
VIAC’s total costs run 0.00% to 0.44% including product fees, the first CHF 8’500 is free, cash pays 0.20% against frankly’s 0.15%, the Global 100 strategy goes to 100% equities against frankly’s 95%, and basic life cover is bundled in. Choose frankly over VIAC for the cantonal-bank chain, not for the economics. My take: VIAC review.
frankly or finpension?
It depends on whether your 3a is invested. finpension charges a flat 0.39% with fund costs genuinely inside it, because its funds run at 0.00% to 0.02% TER, so on an invested balance it is clearly cheaper. But finpension charges that 0.39% on your whole balance including cash, while frankly charges nothing on cash. Mostly cash, frankly wins. Mostly invested, finpension wins. My take: finpension review.
What is the maximum pillar 3a contribution for 2026?
CHF 7’258 if you are employed and in a pension fund, or 20% of your earned income up to CHF 36’288 if you are not. New this tax year: missed contributions from 2025 onwards can be bought back retroactively, up to ten years back, provided the current year is already paid in full.
Can I hold frankly inside ZKB e-banking?
Yes. Your frankly balance appears inside ZKB e-banking and mobile banking, which is the one convenience frankly offers that the independent 3a apps structurally cannot.
Compare & choose
The other comparisons on Investing Hero, each built the same way: every fee read from the provider’s own pricing page.
How this review is kept current. Every frankly figure on this page was read from frankly.ch or zkb.ch on 22 September 2026, never from a comparison site. Where frankly’s own pages disagree with each other, this review says so rather than picking the flattering number. There is no affiliate relationship with frankly and nothing here is paid placement.
Sources. frankly’s own pages, all accessed 22 September 2026: the pillar 3a page (0.43% all-in fee), the all-in fee FAQ (what the fee includes and excludes, and that it is charged on securities only), the interest rate FAQ (0.15% on 3a cash, 0.01% on vested-benefits cash), the investment products page (the sixteen products, index versus actively managed, the 95% ceiling) and the vested benefits pages. Customers and assets under management from Zürcher Kantonalbank’s 2025 annual reporting. The 2026 pillar 3a maxima from the Bundesamt für Sozialversicherungen, not from a provider. Competitor figures from finpension.ch, viac.ch and truewealth.ch pricing pages, accessed 22 September 2026. User rating from frankly’s Google listing, checked 22 September 2026. Nothing on this page is quoted from a comparison site. Educational content, not financial advice.
Very good job writing them in this blog article
Best regards,
Demir Henneberg
Thanks a lot for the review and intro.
I opened and launched my Frankly account last week. Received funds in the account today.
I find the lack of information, i.e. current price of the respective investment funds a con.
It would also be great to top up from other sources than IBAN, e.g. credit or debit cards, Twint, whatnot. Although it might be a bit overkill for a 3a.
I have opted for 95 extreme given the current market downturn. I will buy in and see what happens, also with respect to fees.
One problem I had during the sign up process was the signature. Tapping the signature field to activate would cause loops. Only after several attempts and turning my phone 853° would it work.
Hi Mathias – thanks for the comment, these are great points!
And thanks for sharing the tip on the signature 😉
They have a few bugs to iron out, but they released an update to the app 2 days ago titled ‘Minor bugfixes within the onboarding process’ – this might have solved it.
Thank you very much, I’m very interested. You say: “which could have a significant long term impact vs. the non-hedged version with VIAC”
Can you please explain in more details ?
Hi Denis – Thanks for reading. Take a look at the ‘Frankly vs VIAC’ section for more info on hedging.
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Best regards,
Balle Cannon
I wish I could just invest in whatever shares or funds I like like in a UK sipp or a US 401k. For such a well run country CH has a not so good pension System. Pillar 2 is even worse. Why not let me choose- it’s my money!
VIAC for me over frankly any day of the week, but unless I wasn’t buying a house within the next few years I wouldn’t invest my money in either.
Hi Joe! Thanks for the comment. For Pillar 2 it will depend on your employer, but check out the Valuepension review I made recently (you can select what you like)
https://investinghero.ch/valuepension-review/
Re. The house purchase & P3A – Well, maybe. It’s not black and white and very individual depending on your financial situation. Don’t discredit the tax benefits and low rates on the market today that can be leveraged.
This is a great blog.