I just received my PostFinance Prepaid Mastercard. Does anyone have an idea how to check available balance and transaction history? I can't seethe card listed on my E-Finance, and the documentation that came with the card says nothing either.

My initial guess was that it took some time before it appeared on your E-Finance listing, as I cannot imagine, in this day and age, a card that cannot be managed online. Has it now appeared? If not, did you contact PostFinance?

I am curious as I may be eligible for one of those cards (certainly not eligible for normal credit cards being non-resident).

Had a reply from PostFinace that card balances are not available through E-Finance at this stage, but they have people working to have this facility set up in the future. Surprises me considering alot of banking can be done alone these days.

Did PostFinance suggest how you can view the balances etc, online then?
Or is it just a case of get your statement in the post.

I have a PostFinance credit card at the moment and have been wondering about this.

Postfinance are about a decade behind normal banks (at least in the UK) in terms of online technology... it REALLY pees me off not being able to see my credit card balance online when i've been doing it with HSBC for years.

Can you at least pay online from your PostFinance account?

Yes you can, that is no problem at all - if you have the e-Finance set up!!
Otherwise you can make payments at any Die Post Branches.

I dont believe you can do that with PostFinance... I have looked everywhere myself. I was shocked when i moved from Australia to Switzerland and wasn't able to see my credit card transaction history online in a country that is famous for its banking system! rather odd if i must say... if you do find a way however, let us all know! :-)

You have to wait for your statement apparently.

I just wanted to add to this thread that Postfinance recently added an SMS system for your prepaid mastercard, so you can text from your mobile phone and get the balance back within a couple of seconds.

It worked in the UK when I was there last week, and the payments that I made seemed to be noted immediately so the balance was accurate...

Revisiting this thread; still amazed and annoyed that credit card transactions cannot be checked online. Just thought I would add a link to the page Register SMS-Service that SwissPea mentioned and the relevant Subscriber Conditions -- MasterCard Value text message service.

As soon as I got off the train in Sion today (Thornton, NH -> Boston -> Amsterdam -> Geneva -> Sion ... long day and it was only noon) I went to the PostFinance office and gave them my filled out application for the prepaid MasterCard.

Not only am I not a resident, but I am American which, in the eyes of the Swiss banking system, makes me the blackest kind of black sheep

No problem, I was told. They will even send the card to me Poste Restante in Sion, rather than to my permanent address in the States.

I do not yet have the card in my hands, so you never know what can happen, but it seems that I am now fully banked in Switzerland. I also have a three year half fare card; another EF myth is that you must be a resident to get the full year card.

I still do not have the card in my hands, but today I received the PIN, and the letter said that the card was on its way.

So it is possible for a visitor to get a Swiss (prepaid) credit card!

How much does one have to pay upfront for this prepaid card ?

Costs CHF 50 per year.

http://www.postfinance.ch/en/priv/pr...lue/offer.html

If you mean how much must be transferred to the card answer is CHF 100, If you mean annual fee see post above this.

Agree with all the posts here about the weirdness and frustrations of being unable to view account balance online - especially when in order to find out transaction info you have to therefore telephone them and their call centre personnel are not cheap foreign labour.

Also annoyed that they take three working days to credit transfers from your Post Finance account to your Post Finance credit card UNLESS you call them up and ask them to expedite things.

Big positive with this card is the (unusually for Switzerland) no reload fee, plus the benefit of 0.5% cashback on all purchases - which for my card is doubled for the first year under an offer they were running. This, providing you spend on the card, results in a nice sum being deposited in your account twice a year - which may well more than compensate for the CHF50 p.a. charge. Finally their foreign currency charge is not bad at 0.9% over standard UBS electronic rates.

Not sute that I agree with the "no problem at all" part. Since both of my accounts are with PostFinance they ought to know about each other, and in a rational world I should be able to simply click on a "transfer money to card" link, enter the sum, and be done. Instead I have to go through the transfer to a third party routine, sending the money to a generic credit card account, with my name and card number in the details section. Doable, of course, but inconvenient.

One more annoyance that I discovered when I did my first transfer

Of course, I cannot really complain ... best I can tell it is the only Swiss credit card that I am eligible for. And yes, we are talking of minor annoyances, not fundamental problems. But for a card that is over a year old we can no longer talk of start-up problems.

Registered for the SMS service and used it today. Just wanted to note that to register you need your card account number (in addition to card number) ... had to dig it out of my papers while registering. Once registered getting the balance is as simple as advertised, with essentially instantaneous response.

Unfortunately that showed that a transfer I had made on Thursday afternoon was not yet credited to my card on Monday morning (early)

Finally, one is able to see the balance and transaction history on E-Finance:

https://www.postfinance.ch/en/priv/p...ase/p2501.html