Has anyone kept their Swiss credit card and/or bank account after they've left Switzerland?

When I first got my credit cards, I was not a Swiss citizen (US citizen only), but now I am a Swiss and will be leaving for the UK in March to join my Swiss husband. We'd like to be able to use our Swiss cards until we qualify for ones in the UK.

Do I need to notify them of my change in citizenship, or does that not matter and I'll lose them anyway once I have a foreign address?

Same with our bank account.

Thanks for any anecdotes or advice

I have bank accounts in Switzerland and when I move and live in the UK I just change the address - I have never had a problem.

I can not tell you specificly for swiss bank cards, but when I lived in germany, I had both a german and a danish bank account, and my danish bank sent my bank statements to my german address.

When I moved from Scotland to Switzerland, I got a new credit card from Royal Bankdits of Scotland right before I left. My old card expired and they sent me a new. They must have some kind of sick humor, because the replacement card was valid for 1 month only, and then they sent another replacement card 1 month later. I still have my UK account, they know I have left UK for good, I have given them my address several times, I still use my account, but they just can not get it right, to send my statements here.

I am aware, you go the opposite direction, but apart from Royal Bankdits of Scotland being ineffective, I had no Issues with having a bank account after leaving a country.

Doc.

When we went to England, Mr L kept his Swiss credit card until it expired. Didn't use it much as no money was going into the account so he couldn't take it out again to pay!

We kept our other Swiss bank accounts for the couple of years we were there. As soon as we could convince the Bank Manager in England that we were upstanding citizens and all that we had a Credit Card from the Brits. I had to go and see the Bank Manager in person though as we didn't look very upstanding with rented accomodation and practically nothing in the English Bank Account - we were not going to change more of our lovely Swiss Francs into British ££££s than we really had to! Fortunately the chap thought my logic understandable enough and we got our cards.

Hope all goes well for you.

When I left Switzerland in 2004 I decided to keep my UBS bank account. In the summer of 2005 when I returned for a vacation my card could not be used at first. I went to a bank office and they said since I had forgot to tell them my new address they had got my letters back and therefore my card was temporarily inactivated. My card has been working since then and all correspondance has been sent to my adress abroad, including new cards when the old one was about to expire.

This is quite reassuring, thank you all!

What about Swiss post accounts? I've heard that's less difficult to keep than UBS (which is apparently not allowed now if you're a US citizen)

I have never ben a resident of Switzerland, but was able to open and maintain a PostFinance account: PostFinance account for non-resident (tourist). And yes, I live in the States, no problem either when opening the account or with maintaining it (note that the sums involved are small).

While one of my credit cards demanded that I switch to a secured card once I was no longer a Swiss resident, PostFinance handled our move without any issues. They simply changed our address and I receive post from them here in the UK without a problem.

Last time I moved back to the UK in 1997 it took a year or two before the UK bank started inviting me to take out a credit card. During that time I held onto my Dutch one.

Cheers,
Nick

I informed UBS when I was leaving and they told me my contact person would change as I would now be handled by the dept handling non-residents. Credit cards and Maestro could be kept, but I cancelled my Maestro and kept my Mastercard (I already had a security deposit on my credit card as I come from a 3rd world country with untrustworthy citizens).

Slightly OT, but if you have your 2nd pillar money (Freizugigskeitkonto) in UBS and you want to withdraw it when leaving Switzerland, make sure you have all the relevant documents submitted before you leave the country. My branch didn't know the right procedure and I had to sign some documents with a notary public as witness here in Malaysia and send them back to UBS.

Last time i moved abroad i made sure that all correspondance (statements, direct debits etc etc) was internet only, that way there could be no slip-ups with wrong addresses.

Do it once and you're bullet proof!