Alpian Global Moderate

The lowest-risk plan in Alpian's range, priced the same as the one chasing 98% equities. Does that add up?

Alpian Global Moderate ranks #71 among 90 3a investment funds in Switzerland, near the bottom of the table. It's the most defensive plan Alpian offers: 25% equities, 75% bonds, an international spread, and a 1-out-of-4 risk rating. The snag is the price. You pay the same 0.75% total cost as Alpian's all-equity plan, and the returns on the factsheet are backtested on indices, not money the fund actually made.

Does 0.75% Fit a 75% Bond Fund?

Total cost is 0.75% (0.15% TER plus a 0.60% flat fee), the identical charge Alpian applies to its 98% equity plan. This one is three-quarters bonds, and bonds simply don't generate the returns that make a premium fee easy to swallow. The backtest shows a 3.1% gross annualized return, so the fee eats close to a quarter of it before you even reach inflation.

Conservative plans at VIAC or frankly run roughly 0.28% to 0.44%. On CHF 100,000 that's about CHF 750 here against CHF 300 to 440 elsewhere. For a strategy whose whole job is slow, steady, capital-first growth, handing back that much in fees is a real drag on an already modest number.

What Actually Stands Out

Volatility is genuinely low. The 25-year simulation shows 4.8% annualized volatility and a worst drawdown of just -16.2%, the calmest ride in Alpian's line-up. If a big paper loss would make you panic-sell, a fund that has historically stayed this steady is easier to hold through a rough patch.

It's globally diversified and passive, built from Alpian's BlackRock index blocks, with at least 30% held in or hedged to Swiss francs and an 83% CHF footprint. That's a broad, low-drama core, and the international tilt gives you more spread than the Swiss-focused Moderate sibling.

What Most Reviews Miss

Look at the five-year number. The backtested 5-year return is +4.1%, well below the 3-year +17.0%. That's not a typo; a brutal bond year sits inside the five-year window, and in a 75% bond fund the "safe" sleeve was the source of the loss, not the shield against it.

Everything you see is hypothetical, simulated on indices from 2000 to 2025 rather than earned in a live fund. A bond-heavy book is highly rate-sensitive: when yields jump, prices fall, and a low-risk label does nothing to stop it. Pair that with the segment's highest flat fee and the net return can struggle to outrun inflation over a 30-year 3a horizon.

The Bottom Line

Global Moderate is for a very cautious saver who wants a broadly diversified, low-swing 3a and doesn't mind paying Alpian's platform premium for it. For most people, 0.75% on a 25% equity fund is tough to justify when cheaper providers hold the same bonds for a fraction of the cost. Line it up against the field on our best Pillar 3a investment funds page.

Verdict: A calm, globally spread option with the lowest drawdowns Alpian offers, but the premium fee on a low-return strategy makes cheaper conservative funds the smarter call for most savers.