Hi,

I am moving to Zurich in September for work reasons and I need to open a bank account to receive salary, pay bills and possibly keep some savings. My requirements would be:

- good online banking (I would like to do as much as possible online)
- English-speaking staff
- ATMs network in Zurich

I would also need a pre-paid credit card for online payments.

Any tips?

Thanks!

Hi and welcome to the forum - it would be great to introduce yourself in the Introductions section.

You will probably find that a lot of your questions have already been answered, so before making a new post always try to do a search of the forum. In this case, you would have come across this recent thread:

Which Bank - looking for EUR & CHF account

which should give you some pointers.

I would personally recommend using PostFinance, the financial branch of Switzerland's mail carrier.

Good luck, and welcome to Switzerland!

If you're just looking for normal banking services, they're all about as good or bad as each other.

UBS, CS & ZKB have the most ATMs and English is not considered to be a "foreign language".

Raiffeisen and Migros Bank have better costs, but less facilities and English is not an option for on-line banking.

I'm happy with ZKB, they've always been there for me when I need something, but it's always down to the specific person that you're dealing with ultimately.

Find where you are going to work and see which bank's ATM is the closest.
Then, see if the same bank actually has a full branch near your place of work and at least an ATM near the place you are going to live.

ZKB, UBS, CS and Raiffeisen are the usual contenders.

Strong vote against UBS and CS — they are not at all advantageous for a regular person's everyday bank account. Fees galore.

Go with a Kantonalbank, PostFinance, or Raiffeisen.

UBS have a very good online banking portal in English, which is one of the reasons I have remained with them for the past 10 years or so. Great for transfers, paying bills, checking balances...

UBS is fine if you don't mind paying CHF 10+ a month for the pleasure of them handling your money - though a lot of people get it free for the first year.

From what I've heard, ZKB's English language services are more limited than UBS.

Or if you have at least CHF 10'000 at UBS (in any type of account) you will pay no fee except for the postage for the monthly statements and you can easily avoid that by downloading the statements electronically.

For what it is worth, I have just changed from UBS to PostFinance. Partly due to being fed up with the multiple fees on everything, and partly because their client advisors think they are gods and it seems like they think they are doing you a favour by doing what you want and are paying for. By contrast, PostFinance have been incredibly friendly and helpful.

I've been with UBS since I moved to CH 10 yrs ago....no complaints at all except (and this applies to the other bansk too) I hate the little calculator you need when you do the online banking. I wish I could just enter my username and password without the additional step bc I don't carry the calculator with me everywhere I go.

UBS sends statements in English, onsite at their banks you can access youraccounts, transfer money, pay bills using a computer and the service is all in English.

That is a security feature.
This way, if your credentials are compromised (by whichever means), the attacker cannot just login and empty your account.

agree with this.

actually, i had more than 10k in the account and they wouldn't waive the fees. account now in the process of being closed.

There's a general 10CHF fee per month. That's waived if your assets are over 10'000CHF - across all accounts held. However, other fees, such as paying into an account abroad, are not waived.

As far as electronic banking is concerned, I have CS and UBS accounts. CS is marginally better.

UBS have many more ATM machines than PostFinance.
PostFinance machines always seem to have queues as they are fewer.
UBS online banking is very simple to use.
Both UBS and PostFinance supply a card reader to use their online banking.

I've got both, and will stick with UBS for all day to day stuff.
I found their customer service to be excellent.

Kantonalbank all the way. Low fees, lots of ATMs all over Switzerland (all Kantonalbank ATMs can be used for free, no matter the what Canton they operate in) and state guarantee for your savings.

See: hackt E-Banking Konten on Kassensturz:

http://www.kassensturz.sf.tv/Nachric...Banking-Konten

E-Banking Damage by Malware - year 2010

USA

USD 100 million stolen by malware from US bank accounts.

Germany approx. 15 million Euro damage in online banking due
to phishing and malware.

http://www.bka.de/pressemitteilungen/2010/pm100906.html
Switzerland

4x low damage in 10 years in Raffeisen online banking system

Source: SF1, Kassensturz

Hello:

So I am comparing UBS and CS offerings- UBS does offer free basic banking for 1 year (Pay and Save Basic Offering), but then seems to charge almost double what CS charges the following year. This doesn't seem to make much sense to me- I would open a UBS acct for 1 year, and then migrate to another bank at that point. Am I reading this right? Are they just playing dice to see who will stay past 1 year?

I'd recomend PostFinance. Hardly any fees & loads of machines in Zurich & usually in every town that has a post office.
But above all, their online banking is superb including great international transferes at a very good rate.
Never had a problem in 5 yrs.


Avoid UBS & CS because they are quite simply 2 of the most morally bankrupt institutions on the planet. Seriously, they even make Barclays look ethical.

Totally agree with those recommending PostFinance. They have virtually no fees, their debit cards are accepted by all in CH, they have ATMs even in some remote places. We have been with them for more than 10 years now.

The other option would be to look at smaller banks. Would recommend Clientis-Zürcher Regional Bank - very friendly, helpful and no hang ups like the big ones have treating small individual customers.