I've just started here in Basel and recently got a local bank account. It contains a CHF and a EUR account, which sounds really handy since I still really live in Germany and already have an account there. But I'm not sure how to move money between my two Swiss-based accounts.

If I want to do this, must I do a normal international transfer? This seems rather silly since the CHF and EUR account are with the same bank, and I can access both via the same eBanking login, and they charge fees for non-CHF transfers within Switzerland.

If I have to treat the EUR account as a foreign account like this, then it sort of defeats the purpose of having this EUR account and I could just as easily skip it and go straight to the German account.

Am I missing something?

Thanks.

Hi Dodger,

Sorry, I can't offer any help, however it is an interesting question. Out of interest - what did the bank say you should do? An international transfer?

Also, which bank is it? If you can say which bank it is then people in the exact same situation as you may be able to comment further.

Charday

On my UBS e-banking, there is an 'account transfer' button. This is for transfer amongst your own accounts. It's not achieved through the payment tab. Have a look for something along those lines.

Ok, I just did this, finally know how it works now. If you have an Euro and CHF account at postfinance, you do the internal transfer and do not pay other fees. Your exchange rate is the giro sell rate, which can be found on their site.

So it seems more of an internal transfer. By the way, the transfer was instant, money is now sitting into the euro account without delay.

One advantage of a Euro account in Switzerland is thus that you can often transfer chf into euro without fees, thus allowing you to spread the exchange rate risk. You can withdraw euros at the ATM in Switzerland for free with Postf. Note with UBS you will pay 1% of the amount! So I would suggest to avoid UBS Euro accounts for that reason.

The problem was that the internet banking service for my bank (Basler Kantonalbank) does not have an internal transfer button or anything like that. So I just went to the BKB and found out what to do:

When doing the transfer between the CHF and EUR accounts, do it just like a normal foreign transfer BUT when giving the name of the bank, say "BKB Intern" - by saying "intern", this makes it clear that the transfer is internal and no fees are charged (i.e. follow only the exchange rate).

I imagine that this applies to anyone who has an account with a Kantonalbank.

When transferring cash out of the Swiss EUR account to a foreign EUR account, foreign transfer fees (4 Fr.) are still charged. With the Kantonalbank, you also get charged if you take out Euros at an ATM - but since I still have one foot in Germany, this is something I don't really need to worry about.

So there you go. I hope this helps anyone who is in a similar situation.