I am spending a lot of money in EUR and I know my current bank UBS is charging me a lot everytime I am using my UBS credit card abroad, so I am looking for a way to:

• Have a credit card in EUR (ideally gold visa/mastercard)
• Have a bank account in EUR
• Share it with my partner
  

When I was in France I could have it for free, but my French bank doesn't allow me to maintain my account since I move to Switzerland.

Any ideas to make it happen without paying too much?

Postfinance

They don't do credit cards in foreign currencies, they can only you give you a EUR account and a not widely accepted debit card for it. EUR account is a good deal with them, free from a certain balance and all SEPA transfers are also free.

Revolut's a good option but prepaid. If you need credit and insurances, Viseca offers EUR and USD credit cards for 100-200 CHF/year. I have one for free through a partner deal, pretty happy - as long as you stick to the card's currency, there's zero loss on currency conversion and no ridiculous surcharges for shopping abroad like with UBS

DKB is pretty good if you want to get free cash world wide..

UBS offers credit cards in EUR, why not ask them since you already bank there?

https://www.ubs.com/ch/de/swissbank/...ditkarten.html

Revolut is the best option at the moment in my opinion. We have a whole thread about it but it has some drawbacks like limited free cash withdrawals amd doesnt work on toll roads in france and some petrol stations.

DBK mentioned by someone above, I heard good things about for a EUR bank account and Visa, unfortunately they declined my account opening request when I tried a few years ago without any explanation (I assume due to no credit history in Germany) and as far as I heard they are limiting the free cash withdrawal world wide offering.

All Swiss credit cards are prohibitively expensive, I wouldn't bother with any. They charge a tax for paying in another currency, other than the credit card currency. Additionally they charge an exchange rate, which is also heavy - 3-4%. It's called "UBS retail rate"

DKB as mentioned above or a Sparkasse is also not bad. To convert CHF to another currency you can use currencyfair as an exchange hub and keep only the CHF account with the Swiss bank for CHF transactions.

DKB doesn't do credit cards, only prepaid. As far as prepaids go, Revolut is your best bet and gives you fair interbank currency rates, most of the time, so you can forget currencyfair, transferwise and all other similar establishments robbing you off with their sky high spreads on conversion

Not sure why you say that they don't do credit cards. See: https://www.dkb.de/privatkunden/visa-card/

Totally agree here, the value proposition is absolutely fantastic, holding 25 currencies within one account and being able to exchange, spend and send is just great!

My understanding is that as a foreign (non-german based) customer you'll only be able to get a prepaid card with them, i.e. no overdraft / real credit would be possible as they don't want to be bothered chasing debtors abroad. It'll look like a credit card to merchants though so that they can profit off the merchants just like Revolut, but to you it's a prepaid

My experience says that with DKB you get initially a credit card with 3000 EUR to 5000 EUR which can be extended, if you need to. This is definitely not a prepaid.

I don't know about Revolut, I remember I looked at it sometime ago, but there were some limits.

There is also N26 which offers a MasterCard with good conditions.

DKB also offers an EUR account, you are able to do SEPA payments and there are also services which Revolut and N26 might not offer.

I also had an account with a Sparkasse. The credit card was not as good as DKB, but close.

I'm having a DKB account with NO prior credit history in Germany.

Initially they give you 100€ "credit", which you can extend if all goes well.

But since they actually give interest on anything on the credit card (used to be 1.5% when Swiss banks were long on 0.01%) I happily keep some cash on it.

Also, their customer service is fairly straightforward. All electronically. And when my credit card once was hacked/copied, whatever, I got back all the money, new cards etc. just as fast as a Swiss bank would have done so.

Yes, DKB now made some stuff slightly worse (no more free cash withdrawal outside of Eurozone unless you've regular money coming into your account, for example) but they're still MUCH better than any regular Swiss bank's card to do "world wide credit card usage".

You can also extend the credit limit by topping up you credit card account. Of course, this is not useful if you really need credit. But if you need the credit card in order to make a deposit for a rental car or just to pay in euro, it's ideal.

That's what I meant with "interest on anything on the credit card".

By the way, it's NEVER EVER a good idea to use a credit card if you're actually NOT having the money to pay it back in full. Banks LOVE people who can't pay for their monthly credit card bills.

You can't have a N26 account if you are a non-EU resident.

"Can't" sounds so absolute.

Just use a friend's EU address (obvisouly asking for permission first)?

However, DKB + Revolut + Currencyfair will, in combination, be the best overall solution I guess?

They will still fleece OP with their exchange rates.

Loading Revolut with CHF involves sending money to a GB account which puts in some weird bank fees etc. Wish they would get a CH account

Why should the exchange rates matter if the credit card is linked to an account in EUR?

Not during the actual payment, but when fxing between accounts.