Lombard Loans in Switzerland: Margin Rates Compared 2026
A Lombard loan lets you borrow against your securities portfolio without selling. In Swiss francs, it costs between 0.75% and 3.0% per year. The catch: if markets fall sharply, you have to add money, or your positions get sold.
What is a Lombard loan?
A Lombard loan (brokers often call it a margin loan) is an interesting and powerful construct that most private investors aren’t aware of. It allows you to borrow money using your portfolio as collateral. Thanks to this guarantee, the interest rates you’ll pay can be much lower than other types of loans. Lombard loans are similar to mortgages: in both cases you have a secure asset (house or stocks) as collateral for the bank, which allows them to offer lower interest rates than unsecured consumer credit.
Why would you need a Lombard loan?
A Lombard loan gives you cash without having to sell. It doesn’t give you more money than you already have. The absolute maximum you’ll be able to borrow is typically 50–85% of your stock portfolio value (depending on the broker and assets). So why would you take on a loan and pay interest on it if you could just sell your stocks? The reason is simple: opportunity cost.
If your portfolio averages a 7% annual return, but you only pay 2% interest on a loan, you keep a 5 percentage point spread per year on the amount you don’t sell, before taxes and costs. That’s not guaranteed: if the portfolio falls in the same year, you lose more than if you had sold.
Even better, the interest paid on the loan can be deducted from your taxable income as debt interest. Most other countries have capital gains tax where you’ll have to pay taxes when selling stocks. With a Lombard loan you won’t have to sell, so no capital gains taxes. But since gains on private movable assets are tax-free in Switzerland, this advantage doesn’t apply here. The exception is professional securities dealers, and investing with borrowed money is one of the criteria for being classed as one.
Another advantage is the reduced admin. How much you can borrow from a broker depends on the assets in your account, not on your salary. IBKR still checks your income and net worth before enabling margin, though.
So Lombard loans sound like a great deal, right? They are, but they don’t come without risks. Your loan cannot exceed a certain percentage of your portfolio value (the loan-to-value ratio). If your portfolio falls too far, the bank asks you to add money or reduce the loan (margin call), or it sells your stocks directly (liquidation). The worked example below shows what this looks like in francs.
Loan-to-value by asset class: how much can you borrow?
The lending value is the share of the market value that the bank accepts as collateral. With CHF 100,000 in stocks and a lending value of 50%, you can borrow at most CHF 50,000. According to Swissquote, these indicative values are common in the market:
| Asset class | Typical loan-to-value |
|---|---|
| Stocks | 40–50% |
| Investment-grade bonds | 60–70% |
| Unit-linked life insurance policies | 40–60% |
Lombard loan rates: banks and brokers compared
| Interactive Brokers | Saxo Bank | Swissquote | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CHF interest rate | 1.5% up to CHF 90,000, tiered down to 0.75% above | 2.0% (Classic), 1.5% (Platinum), 1.0% (VIP) | 3.0% |
| Max loan-to-value | ~50% (stocks) | Up to 95% | Case-by-case |
| Margin call | Usually no margin call, immediate liquidation | Warning from 75% utilization | Sometimes a very short deadline |
All three brokers allow you to withdraw borrowed funds to an external bank account. This is the critical feature for using a Lombard loan as a liquidity tool rather than for leveraged trading.
Interactive Brokers: tiered rates from 1.5% down to 0.75%
- CHF interest rate
- 1.5%, lower above CHF 90,000
- If collateral falls short
- Immediate liquidation
Interactive Brokers usually offers the lowest borrowing costs of the three brokers at standard rates. IBKR uses a tiered system where larger loans get better rates. Each rate applies only to the part of the loan within its tier (margin rates):
| Loan amount (CHF) | Rate on this portion |
|---|---|
| 0–90,000 | 1.5% |
| 90,000–900,000 | 1.0% |
| Above 900,000 | 0.75% |
The rate they charge can be adjusted at any time for any reason, so there’s no guarantee the rate will remain constant. Keep in mind that these rates only apply to IBKR Pro, not Lite. But only Pro is available in Switzerland, so all Swiss investors will be on that plan.
Conditions
For ordinary stocks, the simplified rule according to IBKR is: you can borrow up to 50% of your portfolio value initially, and afterwards your equity must stay at 25% or more. So the loan can reach at most 75% of the current portfolio value.
If your equity falls short, IBKR’s client guide says it usually sells positions immediately, without a prior margin call and without letting you choose what gets sold. Not all securities qualify as collateral. Penny stocks, very small caps, and newly IPO’d stocks (first 30 days) are excluded or will be counted at reduced value.
Saxo Bank: rate depends on your account tier
- CHF interest rate
- 2.0% (Classic) to 1.0% (VIP)
- If collateral falls short
- Warning from 75% utilization
Saxo Bank’s margin product is explicitly called a “Lombard Loan” and is designed for the liquidity use case. They charge flat rates that depend on your account tier (Saxo Lombard loan):
| Account tier | Requirement | CHF interest rate |
|---|---|---|
| Classic | Default | 2.0% |
| Platinum | CHF 250,000 deposit | 1.5% |
| VIP | CHF 1,000,000 deposit | 1.0% |
Saxo Bank reserves the right to adjust the interest rate at any time without notice.
Conditions
The loan-to-value ratio you can achieve depends on how risky your assets are. With the lowest risk assets you can borrow up to 95%, but higher risk assets might not qualify at all. The platform shows you the collateral value of each security. But I wouldn’t recommend going anywhere near 95% loan-to-value anyway.
Unlike IBKR, Saxo warns you first. From 75% utilization of your credit limit, you’ll receive a warning asking you to transfer funds into Saxo. Utilization must stay below 100%, otherwise Saxo’s help centre says it can sell positions.
Swissquote: flat 3% rate
- CHF interest rate
- 3.0%
- Minimum loan
- None
Swissquote charges 3.0% for CHF Lombard loans, with no minimum amount. There are no volume discounts or tiered pricing. For a CHF 200,000 loan, you’d pay CHF 6,000 per year: more than double what IBKR charges and 50% more than Saxo’s Classic tier. Swissquote reserves the right to adjust the interest rate at any time without notice.
Conditions
Swissquote doesn’t publish binding loan-to-value limits, only the indicative values above. According to the loan agreement, the deadline for a margin call can be very short, and in some situations Swissquote can act without a margin call.
Lombard loans at cantonal banks
Cantonal banks offer Lombard loans too, often from CHF 50,000. Basellandschaftliche Kantonalbank (BLKB) charges 1.45% per year in CHF, with no credit commission or account fee (BLKB Lombard loan, in German). That’s about as cheap as IBKR. If your portfolio is at a cantonal bank and you need at least CHF 50,000, it’s worth looking at their Lombard loan.
Lombard loan example: when prices fall
You hold CHF 100,000 in equity ETFs and draw CHF 50,000 as a Lombard loan. That costs you CHF 725 per year at BLKB, about CHF 760 at IBKR, CHF 1,000 at Saxo Classic and CHF 1,500 at Swissquote.
Now markets fall. For the bank, we assume a lending value of 50% for stocks. For IBKR, we use the simplified rule from above (loan at most 75% of the portfolio):
| Portfolio value | Bank with 50% lending value | IBKR (simplified) |
|---|---|---|
| CHF 80,000 (−20%) | Margin call: add CHF 10,000 or reduce the loan | No action needed |
| CHF 60,000 (−40%) | Margin call: CHF 20,000 | At least CHF 20,000 sold |
At IBKR, the threshold is CHF 66,667, and below it stocks get sold at the low price. With a loan of only CHF 20,000, the bank’s margin call would come only below CHF 40,000 (−60%).
Conclusion
Interactive Brokers offers the best interest rates of the three brokers at standard rates; only Saxo VIP at 1.0% can be cheaper. But Saxo Bank’s rates aren’t bad either. So unless you’re willing to switch brokers or are considering huge loan amounts, I recommend sticking with whichever broker you’re already using. While IBKR has the better rates, Saxo Bank has higher loan-to-value limits for secure assets. Although I’d never recommend using such aggressive ratios anyway.
Swissquote is hard to recommend for Lombard loans. The 3% rate is uncompetitive and the loan-to-value ratio is non-transparent.
In terms of when Lombard loans make sense, they can be great if you want to make an expensive purchase where another type of loan would be more expensive. A great example is a car where you might pay 4% interest on financing, in which case a Lombard loan is much cheaper. For a down payment on a home, it’s a poor fit, because the mortgage lender won’t necessarily accept borrowed money as equity.
But no matter what, it’s very important to manage the risks associated with Lombard loans. Don’t take out more than 20% of your portfolio value as a loan, and never take out Lombard loans based on volatile assets such as a single stock, which is much more likely to decline sharply than a broad ETF.