Hi,

I am going on holiday and need to buy some Euros (in exchange for Swiss Francs). As I live in Basel, I also seem to keep needing Euros pretty often too. In the UK, I used to buy foreign currencies at the Post Office as they charged no commission. I think the rate was always pretty ok too. Does anyone know of anywhere similar here?

If not, does anyone have any advice on getting Euros?

I am sorry if this has been addressed elsewhere, I tried searching and going through old threads but seem to only find advice about bank transfers...

Thanks for your help

ATMs here are marked if they dispense CHF and/or/only EUR. Same in the neighboring German communities. Otherwise you can exchange currency at the Bank or the Geldwechsel.

Thanks. I guess I was hoping more experienced people would know of somewhere better than the bank for exchanging. My bank wanted to charge me 3% commission. Which is more than I wanted to pay

Go to an ATM in France or Germany, get EUR out, pay a lot less than 3% commission.

Go to an ATM in CH, get EUR out, pay no commission!!

Lol! Is it really that simple? Thanks for your advice I was sure the bank man told me that they charge 3% for ATM withdrawals in Euros as well. Maybe I misunderstood what he was saying to me. I will go and check again. Maybe I am thinking everything is a lot more complicated than it is!

For the future, you may want to consider banking with a bank that offers special cross-border programs. Not sure what they have in Basel but our bank is Credit Mutuel in France and we have separate accounts in euros and Swiss francs. No extra fees and we simply have our salaries deposited in separate percentages.

I'd imagine Basel's got to have something similar. Anyone?