All about to get my first bank account in Switzerland this week. What do you guys use in Basel?

Doing some searching looks like postfinance is recommended. Just wanted to double check this for my needs.

Cheap fees, take Euros out in Fr/D, Internet in English, plenty of ATMs in Basel, send money bank to UK in GBPs, buy items in GBPs in UK and finally make it a joint account.

Do they guarantee your money if went pear shaped?

Was going to get coop or migros credit card too as no fees if pay off full amount. Are these good for Chf/Eu purchases too?

Switzerland could really do with a Martins money tips equivalent to help with these decisions!

Thanks

Not sure if you can buy items with the yellow post card outside CH, for that I guess you need and additional Maestro card or a credit card. For the rest, they have a pretty good service, I have no complains with them.

When I came here the relcoation company recommened UBS, and I haven't regretted it so far.
Website, documentation and any correspondance is in English.
You'll always find someone in a branch speaking English also.
Website is very good. As for the cost, it's a drop in the ocean.
I'm also with Postfinance. There are usually queues for the few machines they have. Website in English and pretty good, but I don't use it as a day to day account so don't know about that.
Do a search, it's been discussed here before.

Agree with all this myself, we opened our account in July this year soon after relocating.There are no bank charges for a year (not sure if that's on everything but you should check the T&Cs). We also got two credit cards each, one Mastercard and one Visa along with a savings account for our little girl. Seems very straightforward at the mo. E-banking is very simple to use too.

I also agree. We opened accounts with UBS and have been very happy with them.

Thanks all.

Do you think the recent UBS issues will effect the average customer?

I use PostFinance. Once you have some money (I believe 20K CHF) in your account there are no fees, and you can use your yellow cashcard in any ATM world wide for no charge. Foreign exchange fees still loaded into the exchange rate though.

Only issue is that the yellow card doesn't work online outside of Switzerland (or some German retailers I think). For that you need another card.

I have the Halbtax Visa. It's free (and saves some money off the Halbtax card itself) but there's no online banking. So you just wait for the statement and pay it (using your bank's online facility - no automatic DD).

Halbtax is the half-fare card for train travel.

If you live and work in Basel the KantonalBank has some special accounts with higher interest and no fee. I found them very friendly and they helped me with some issues.
As a Ph.D. i used to have an account at the UBS and i was pretty satisfied with that too.