I am with UBS and use internet banking to send money to my UK accounts. No problems!

LLoyds have a branch in zurich you can pay money into.
I imagine there are other English banks in Zurich..sure I have seen an RBS.

also with UBS and use there internet banking to transfer money back to the uk.

Not sure an agency or employer will pay you directly into a non swiss account??

Opening account here is simple (or was 5 years ago lol) pop into a main branch, take your passport, contract and anything else you might have, give them 150chf to deposit into it and your away. Nothing like the grief you have trying to open an account in the uk.

To be honest you're going to loose somewhere - the banks will make sure of that. Unless you are going to play on the foreign exchange markets, you'll just have to see what the individual banks are charging you for international money transfers.

Generally, I find that large transfers are better as they usually charge a "minimum" %, so you need to make sure you hit that minumum.

The other thing to think about is that banks will allow you to have a Sterling account here, so you can do your conversions here and potentially take money out of a hole in the wall in the UK (if your wife has the card).

At current exchange rates I wouldn´t worry to much. If you are to be paid in chf here and transfer to UK GBP you are in a strong position. I remember sending chf at a rate of 2.45 so the current rate looks highly attractive to me. Your bank will do it at low cost.

I just transferred some CHF to RBS today. I got 1.7. Not to shabby!

UBS charge a flat rate of CHF as long as you have the BIC and the IBAN.

do not try the HSBC here.. it s HSBC Private Bank and separate from HSBC UK

Abso-bloody-lutely. I had to transfer money to the UK at 2.5, then had to bring it back here at 1.5 - I can tell you that hurt! We lost c. 10-12 k CHF

open a Swissquote account, transfer CHF to GBP online there and then wait to send a big whack to your UK bank account GBP to GBP. That is one cost effective way to do it, though as you've heard there are others.

I am using the FX Global Transfer system from www.OandA.com. You will have to go through the money laundering checks as normal when opening a new bank account, but once that is done it gives you very low fees currency exchanges and transfers. The fees are 25USD for most transactions (currently GBP15), and the rates are updated live (refreshed every minute) so you see exactly what rate you are getting before you make the trade.

If you want to do regular transfers then it is worthwhile using this system as otherwise UBS etc will be making a nice profit on their fees for each transaction.

I have good personal experience with wechselstube.ch. Set up an account, transfer to them and they transfer to your nominated account in currency. Saves about CHF100 on CHF10,000 vs UBS rates for eqivalent size...

Hi, I also looked into wechselstube.ch, however it requires a notarised copy of passport or a permit for a registration and thats stopped me, as it would require finding a solicitor and paying a fee to have a photocopy of a document. Can you recommend someone who could do it for me and how much approx. does it cost (from your experience)?

Personally, I've registered with xe.com and had no problem with the transfers and no separate transfer charges, however not sure if i get the best exchange rate from them...

i want to transfer money from UK to switzerland. maybe you can transfer chfs to me, and i'll transfer gbps to you.

any CH practising solicitor/lawyer should be able to do this for you, for about 20CHF.

It may be hard to find a rate that we both would be happy with!!