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Glossar · Finance
Securities Account (Depot)
An account maintained by a custodian on which securities such as shares, bonds or ETFs are held and booked — protected as segregated client assets in the event of broker insolvency.
What it is
A securities account (German: Depot or Wertpapierdepot) is an account maintained by a custodian on which securities — shares, bonds, ETFs or fund units — are held and booked. Legally the bank does not own these holdings: securities remain segregated client assets (Sondervermögen) and are protected in the event of broker insolvency.
In Austria custody is governed by the Depotgesetz (DepotG), supplemented by the Banking Act (BWG) and, at EU level, by MiFID II and the Investment Firms Regulation. Germany applies its own Depotgesetz of 1937 in its current amended form.
Provider landscape in the DACH region
The Austrian market splits broadly into three camps:
- Branch banks (Erste, BAWAG, Raiffeisen, Bank Austria) — higher fees, in-person advice, automatic withholding of capital gains tax.
- Direct banks (DADAT, easybank, ING) — lean fee schedules, online onboarding, with the same automatic Austrian KESt deduction.
- Neobrokers and foreign brokers (Neobroker such as Trade Republic, Scalable Capital, Bitpanda Stocks or Interactive Brokers) — very cheap, but in many cases no automatic Austrian withholding. The investor must then declare income separately at year-end.
Since January 2025, the FMA's full list of licensed Austrian investment firms has been available online — a useful starting point before opening any account.
Cost structure in practice
Custody fees typically range between 0% and 0.3% per year of assets under custody. On top sit transaction fees (a flat €1-€10 at neobrokers, 0.2-1% of trade value at branch banks), foreign custody charges and spreads that are not separately disclosed.
Example: a €50,000 account at Trade Republic carries no custody fee and €1 per trade. The same account at Erste Bank costs roughly 0.18% per year (= €90) plus around 0.38% per trade — across ten trades per year, the difference runs into several hundred euros.
What investors often ask
What happens to my account if the broker goes bankrupt? The securities themselves are segregated assets and remain fully intact. Statutory investor compensation covers only cash balances and damage claims, up to €20,000 per client.