Situation: Been in Zurich from 2004 onwards. Had an acccount with UBS which acted as salary account too. Applied and got Credit Card from same bank a year back ..Married and my wife joined me in Zurich.

Simple problem: Would like to make the solo bank account a joint holding account with my wife

I casually called up my Bank advisor to know what documents do we have to bring to make that account joint account with both our names. To my utter surprise, he mentioned that such an action is not possible, but he gave me two options.
i) Give power of attorney to my wife for that account
ii) Open up UBS family account, additionally where we both could be together.

Though it sounded like a marketing gimmick to try and sell Family pack to us, but again, its seldom done like that in Switzerland. So I am confused.

Now, where I am from, you just have to go with the other person whom you want to have the joint account with, with couple of pictures and few documents and "Bobs your uncle"! But here it seemed complete different ball game.

My question:
Did someone else want exactly what I want?
If yes, then was he/she successful?

I mean, isnt there a way to just add another person to the existing account, which is much more easy for the customer, than to reapply for another account, set up everything fresh, another credit card etc ...

Also, if someone knows, does Post Account also have same rules?
(I intended to make it joint too!)

Hello,

I had a similar need (joint account with my GF), we ended up taking their family offer, which, as far as I can remember, roughly costs the same as what I was paying before for my account.

Regards,
Alain

funnily enough .....

asked UBS about this last week, same answer so went around the corner with Mrs P & opened a joint account with Post in 10 minutes. While I was there, also decided that enough was enough with UBS & opened a personal account there ... bye bye UBS.

Agreed ... but now either I pay double (since I will be maintaining two account with UBS)
or else
Transfer everything to this family pack .. but hey, bank balance less than 10k also attracts deductions every month ( § I dont want this to be one of the reasons I wish I had more money § ) .. so I have to close the former

I had the same situation. UBS refused to make our two accounts joined (or make one account joint I mean), and the family pack sucks if you do not need two credit cards, then it is expensive.

So we both left UBS, and went to PostFinance. They do normal joint accounts, and you can have one account each to yourself as well, and if you want to, add power of attorney to those, so one of you can deal with all accounts online in one go. Very handy if usually one of you pays the bills, as you can choose between all the accounts then, or transfer instantly between accounts etc.

The only thing PostFinance did not offer us is an account for the rental deposit. So our mietzinskonto stays with UBS, but it does not attract fees by the way. (They also offer accounts in other currencies, e.g. Euro, which is free if over >7500 CHF a month on average (not each day >10k as with UBS), and in other currencies like AUD for 2 CHF per month).