Everything is relative. If I came here with 2x increase in salary, but bank fees are 10x higher here, you can be sure I'll complain about that

glad i dumped PF.

I also received the letter a few days ago and had read about it in the media before.

To me, the most affecting change (with the cheaper model that was proposed to us), is that from now on, we will get charged for cash withdrawals using PostFinance card from non-PF ATMs (2 CHF /w/d).

My UK account pays me for having it. I'm certainly not going to pay for a basic bank account - that's just bananas. I use Neon - totally free.

Wasn't that the case anyway?

<<Migros Bank as the best traditional Swiss Bank>>


When I got separated Migros Bank sent all my bank statements to my husband's new address. Yes he opened them and I don't blame him as he had no reason to believe my mail would arrive at his new place with which I had nothing to do with.

That could have gone pretty badly, had we not had separation of property.
Guess how fast I left Migros. Oh and they felt no guilt at all, didn't even apologize! And that was before the US fu**ed with our bank-secret.

Don't go to Migros, their banking is as private as your Cumulus-card.

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It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So

I don't really have a problem with the bank fees (I admit, I kind of did with Post)
I pay what ... 100.00/year for the EC card? I can get cash with that one from other banks 12 times a year (newish) after that they will charge me but I can get it from their own for free any time, I don't get charged using the EC card for paying. (yet, that's meant to change generally, I'll cross that bridge when we get to it). That's it with the costs. My credit card is not from the bank.
Then I get charged for the deposit and when I buy/sell shares etc. I learnt yesterday that I could save 60% of those costs if I did it myself in ebanking. But the costs have not really caught my special attention so far and I'm not an active trader. Once I made my decisions I don't want to be bothered with the actual work.

Naaa, I don't really see the problem. I know I wouldn't work that cheaply.
Oh and I'm not on 120K/year. Totally uncool, I know.

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It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So

Can't member the last time I made a cash withdrawal.. between all the electronic options and the current preference for electronic payments at the shops, I still have over 100 CHF in my wallet untouched for well over a year.

Feel free to complain all you like – but if [previous income 1x – previous bank fees 1x] against [current income 2x – current bank fees 10x] doesn’t leave you with more disposable income, you’re either an outlier or made a fundamental mistake

Hmm it's interesting... from the leaflet I just read it seems that having the 25k in your account no longer counts as meeting the requirement to avoid the 5chf fees, it has to be invested in something (3rd pillar or trading account).

That means that the "Basic" account is 60chf per year + 50chf for a credit card which is anyway 110chf, so only 10chf cheaper than the "Plus" account. Works out pretty much the same.

I will check with them if that is correct, though I rarely leave more than a months salary in my account anyway and sadly that is still a couple of rappen short of 25k (lol).

However, Postfinance is still the cheapest of the more significant 'banks' by some margin... https://www.moneyland.ch/de/privateaccount/list

I use somebody else’s sticker in my vain attempt to FU their statistics OTOH, you could always consider Bank COOP/Cler: they sent fully unconnected statements to random folk a while back

AFAIK the balance of the checking a/c is no longer relevant since quite a few years...
Re cards suggestion: go for a free Cumulus/Coop CC and only use it in CH - LSV/BAD it to your PF a/c

The inconvenience of opening a new account and making additional transfers is nowhere near worth the savings of 60chf per year. To me, at least.

LOL. Actually I left Coop bank when it changed to Cler (only one account), Cler seemed weird.

Still less dramatic than sending it to the ex-spouse in spe.
Huh? What language is that?

I meant "direct debit" - Lastschriftverfahren for banks and equivalent acronym BAD for PostFinance (don't recall what it stands/stood for) to ease your monthly administration. Your existing PF CC will already be attached to you’re a/c, I suppose…

Am not a cow! Don't like getting milked.
Warren Buffet don't like it either.

Not wholly correct. In a normal interest rate environment, customer deposits have a value, as you can pay them a bit of interest and loan the money out for more interest and collect the spread. The negative interest rate environment makes that rather more difficult.

It also works in more anglo-Saxon environments where a lot of people tend to live in their overdrafts and pay a pretty penny for that privilege. Their interest payments subsidise free banking for everyone else. The analogue of this is why credit cards generally have fees in Switzerland - people generally pay off their balance at the end of the month and those who don‘t are legally protected by a cap on the debit interest rate (and is the same reason there is no interest rate differentiation between customers using the same credit card and very little price competition between card offerings).

And anyone who wants to earn interest on their deposits... SNB rates are negative. Be happy that you are not being charged interest. It already happens to HNW clients and slowly, but surely will creep downwards until the SNB makes rates positive, which I can‘t see happening until the ECB do, which I can‘t see happening until the Eurozone is back on its feet (or breaks up).

Belastungsauftragsdienst.

You seem male - some do...

No. Cash withdrawal used to be free in Switzerland with a PF card. Actually, I have also used my PF card at a German ATM for free as well, albeit possibly with a not-so-good exchange rate.