Yes, send them a message via ebanking and they'll give you a form.

No experience, but it looks interesting. They offer a maestro debit card, which postfinance doesn't offer.

It's quite shortsighted from postfinance to introduce an account fee in the era of direct banking. Once a client is gone, he's gone.

I've already dropped their credit card and I am preparing to move the 3a account. The break even point is reached, if I find a solid service I am prepared to leave definitively.

I closed all my accounts with them.

I am in the process of opening an account with CA Next, linked above. So far the experience has been positive: I left my contacts, they called back, answered every question I asked, all in English. Then they sent a form to complete over e-mail, though unencrypted, and they will be sending contracts over the snail-mail.

What I noted:

* CHF and EUR accounts are completely free if 20K CHF is deposited
* Free SEPA-transfers within EU: I hope to be able to use it for Revolut
* Free unlimited ATM-withdrawals from any(!) ATM in CH
* There's an offer for new customers to open a savings account for 6 months at 0.5% rent. The catch is that the money is locked there, a withdrawal prior 6-month period is over results in 2% charge penalty. But I plan to put there those 20K to avoid paying any maintenance fees. Once the 6 months pass the money is automatically transferred to the deposit account
* Their Maestro debit card can't be used online. Not an issue for me since I have Transferwise and Revolut anyway
* They offer Mastercard credit card, free for the first year, can be cancelled anytime. Monthly dues are automatically withdrawn from the linked deposit account at the end of each month. 5K CHF/month is the upper credit limit for most of new customers
* Their Internet-banking should be "fully-functional" but I haven't got access yet

I also needed to visit their physical branch (rather an office) in Zürich to get my IDs confirmed by their employee: they took a copy of my passport and my permit, stamped the copies, asked me to sign, and returned the copies to me.

Coop and Migros offer credit card with no yearly fees and 10k/15k credit. Good for paying is Switzerland or for a deposit when renting a car. For the rest there is Transferwise...

I opened Migros one last year but they set a ridiculous limit of 1K CHF for me guess it's because of me just arriving in the country. So I only use it for Migros/Alnatura shopping in Switzerland.

I can see up the thread that people tend to jump out of postfinance in panic, no matter where, most likely to equally good/bad option just because there is a change. 5 CHF a month is still quite cheap for the quality.

Which is better Revolute or Transferwise? Any Diff?

That sounds great. Can you please confirm that they also offer an Euro account free of charge?
As far as I can see, they only have one office/branch in Zurich. Am I missing anything? Just saying, as Postfinance doesn't have many more...

Their customer service is closed on weekends (and probably outside business hours too).
I got my credit card blocked while abroad, tried to call the call center and heard "we are closed, please use ebanking". That's not what I like to hear when I need help.

Yep, it is pretty funny to watch this bizarre behaviour. 5chf a month is still very reasonable for a 'bank' with such mature and convenient online services, not to mention a physical place to go and see someone in every Post office.

The hassle of changing accounts and swapping/re-routing e-bills and god knows how many other things that would be required when changing banks is in no way proportionate to a 5chf monthly charge.

There seems to be a 24 hour credit card telephone line for blocking/unblocking credit cards, according to the Postfinance website.

Transferwise is often cheaper at weekends. Cheaper for x'ferring CHF from a CH account to EUR. The Transferwise card is accepted as a 'real' debit card whereas the Revolut card is not. Examples: I couldn't use the Revolut card to hire a car in the US or book a room at Wynn Las Vegas, Transferwise worked for both.

https://www.postfinance.ch/en/privat...lock-card.html

Apparently that applies to blocking only -- and can be done without an operator.
Unblocking the card requires an operator as you have to review the culprit transactions.

Yes, free of charge EUR account (but obviously the conversion will step in if depositing anything but EUR), and no “full scale” branch in Zürich, only sort of a “counter”. It’s not a problem for me as I am coming from Norway where “virtual” banks are quite common. Even with PF I have never visited any of their branches after opening my accounts.

To people commenting about “panic” or hassle: it’s all individual. I see no problem to spend 1-2 hours and get a fee-free banking, how I expect it to be actually. My firm believe is that the traditional banking that charges for everything belongs to the past.

I've put in PF my 3a saving for last few years, only due to tax savings, no plan in investing (and potentially losing) them. Glad they at least take into account those savings, if they are above 25,000 CHF.

Wanted to get another joint account with fiancee with them, they refused to give us a freakin' VISA credit card! We're stuck with crappy Maestro that we need to load manually constantly. Proper PITA. Will probably move the joint account elsewhere, and keep my personal one since its free (+50 chf for VISA credit card for my account)

Are you sure? The way I read it was that 3a only counts if it is investment type (not just cash).

That seems correct, I specifically asked that yesterday (and needed to get firm "is the answer yes or no?" to get something else than the standard text).
At least in e-trading, the cash does not count.

Anyone else who is a US person and has had success with a bank other than PF?

I am a Italy/US dual national but spouse is US only. When we opened PF account, my understanding was there were not a lot of other banks that handled US nationals smoothly (or at all)...

We have been happy PF customers, probably will stay but we got the fee letter today too so rethinking alternatives...

I depends on personal circumstances. I personally prefer Revolut as I travel a lot and find their app and cards easier to use. I currently transfer CHF from PF into TW and then top up Revolut via the TW debit card (all free).


I am now mulling over switching 100% of my banking to Revolut simply for the ease....

From Dec'18 TW will start charging 1 CHF for each bank transfer from its borderless account, plus 0.3% additional conversion fee if sending to accounts in different currencies than CHF.

Revolut still doesn't have a Swiss IBAN. So completely commissions-free way of topping it from a Swiss account would probably be SEPA-transfers, if they are free in your bank.