Checklists instead of comparison lists
Rankings go out of date quickly, good questions don't. With these five checklists you check accounts, savings, brokers, credit cards and insurance yourself, in the order that really matters.
Big finance portals show you long rankings of accounts, brokers and cards. You won't find a list like that on Zerotoinvest. Conditions change all the time, and many rankings earn money from every sign up. Here you get the questions you can use to check any offer yourself, today and in five years.
The order matters. At the top is always what rules an offer out straight away, further down comes the fine tuning. If a point near the top isn't met, you can skip the rest.
Your ticks aren't saved anywhere. You can also print this page and put it next to the offer.
Current account
More in Understanding your current account.
Savings and fixed term deposits
More in Savings and fixed term deposits.
Broker and investment account
The same points are available as a fillable broker checklist (PDF). More in Finding a trustworthy broker and Comparing brokers.
Credit card
More in Debit card, credit card, Girocard.
Before any insurance policy
More in Which insurance you really need.
Comparison portals are mostly funded by commissions. If you open an account, get a card or buy insurance through their link, the portal gets paid by the provider. Many portals disclose this and stress that their rankings are independent. Even so, the business model decides which products get covered in depth and which questions come first.
A checklist has another advantage. It hardly goes out of date. Today's savings rate is history in three months, but the question about deposit insurance stays important. Once you understand the questions, you don't need a ranking for your next decision.
If you want to put offers side by side, use the official documents. Before you sign, banks must give you a standardised fee information document for current accounts, funds and ETFs have a key information document, insurers a product information sheet. These documents look the same for every provider and are made for this kind of comparison.
You check whether a provider is authorised in the register of your national supervisor, such as BaFin in Germany, FMA in Austria, FINMA in Switzerland or FSMA in Belgium. For investment firms there's also a central register kept by the European supervisor ESMA.
Summary
- First check what rules an offer out, only then look at costs.
- Authorisation and deposit insurance always come first for accounts, savings and brokers.
- Official documents like the fee information document make offers comparable.
Did you get it?
Why doesn't Zerotoinvest have a ranking of providers?
Because conditions change all the time and many rankings earn from sign ups. The questions, on the other hand, stay valid.
What do you check first with a broker?
Whether the provider is authorised by a supervisor in the EU and whether the company in the contract matches the one in the register.
Which documents help you compare?
The standardised fee information document for current accounts, the key information document for funds and ETFs and the product information sheet for insurance.
Sources and further reading
- Directive 2014/92/EU on payment accounts (standardised fee information). View source ↗
- ESMA, registers of authorised investment firms. View source ↗
- Regulation (EU) No 1286/2014 on key information documents (PRIIPs). View source ↗
Related
- Templates to downloadTemplates
- Finding a trustworthy brokerLesson
- Understanding your current accountEveryday Money
- Which insurance you really needEveryday Money