Hello everyone. Just a quick question about Swiss accounts. I will be moving with my family to Bern in July from the US and I will still have some credit cards and student loans. Can you set up your Swiss account to pay those accounts online? Just trying to figure out if I have to keep a US bank account open and how much I should keep in it. I would rather transfer everything and pay using my Swiss bank. Anyone have any experience with something like this? Thanks!!

It should be possible for you to pay that with your swiss e-banking.

But are you sure you would want to move your money from US account to Swiss account and then pay US credit cards from the Swiss account?
The Swiss currency is so strong at the moment, that you will probably loose some money doing that. It may be worth considering keeping your US money in US for a while longer.... just a thought

I have not moved my money to CH from my home country as I would loose with the current exchange rate - in addition, there are charges for transferring money internationally, that you may not be paying if you pay your US credit card from US bank account.

Hope you´ll enjoy Switzerland when you get here - Is a great place to be

If you can, avoid transfering money from the US to CH, because there is bound to be some costs associated with the transaction.

Then when you pay your credit cards in the US with CH funds, there will again be some transaction fees.

You also need to check with your US accounts. Some of them will not accept payments from non-us sources. You may need to keep a US account.

I ended up finding (and keeping) a US bank account with no fees nor minimum balance. Then I move money to it as necessary and pay US stuff with it - mostly through direct debit and online bill pay. It is another account to keep tract of, but everybody in the US knows how to deal with it.

I also suggest to keep a US account, as long as there are no-fees it is very useful for loans, travelling, iTunes, etc.

Thanks for all the help. I just got a Charles Schwab checking account with no international purchase fees and no ATM fees. I guess I'll keep it open for a while.....sick of the US, but I guess I will still have a tie or two to it.