I will be coming to Zurich to study in a joint UZH ETH program. The university told me "we recommend that you pay the invoice by post at a post office." What does it mean to pay at a post office.

Does that mean I take cash to the post office, pay, and the post office sends the money to the university. If so,

1. What fee does the post office charge?
2. What information do I need to bring to the post office to insure the money goes to the right place?

Thanks.

You can pay in cash, they will give you a paying in slip with the invoice. In Switzerland paying your tax bill using cash would not be considered strange
You could also pay by bank transfer

They give you an invoice that has 2 parts, you hand over this to a cashier and lay using cash or debit/credit card of your choice. Cashier stamps both parts and gives you a small one as a proof of payment.

Nothing else is required

Just keep in mind that IBAN transfer outside of Switzerland will likely incur a fee of intermidate bank, hence you need to transfer a bit more.

Hi,

don't you have other more suitable alternatives?

https://ethz.ch/students/en/studies/...-invoices.html

If you go for the post office option, you'd have to go there, fill the payment invoice manually (check the link above) and pay it there.

I think the fees are available in the internet:

https://www.postfinance.ch/en/about-...ment-fees.html

Kind regards,

Javier

Pay however you want, no need to go to post, but paying bills outside of the SEPA (The Single Euro Payments Area) area can be expensive and slow. ETH asks that all the transfer expenses are paid by payer.



Are you paying to ETH? They have different options:
https://ethz.ch/students/en/studies/...-invoices.html


You can pay with cash also on the campus.

My post office does not allow payment by credit card. Debit card or cash only. Maybe other post offices are different?

Do they want this payment before you arrive in Switzerland? If so, I don’t know how you can do it at a post office.

If not in Switzerland I’d use eBanking or other money transfer service.
If in Switzerland with Swiss account, I’d also use eBanking (post office payments are old school).

Assuming the university provides payment slips compatible with the giro international system then you can pay in post offices worldwide.

Good luck turning up at a Post Office with $10k in cash to pay a bill in a country the clerk never heard of.

Obviously the person who answered you was thinking locally.
Contact her/him and ask for the university’s banking details:
Bank, Bank branch address, account, SWIFT/Bic and most important the IBAN number
Ask for an invoice nb or reference and make very sure you add this and your information (such as your name and student number and course/faculty where you’ll be) so that your payment does not get lost.

With this complete info, make a bank transfer.

Good luck and hope you enjoy Zurich.

Likewise, good luck turning up at a Post Office with a letter addressed to a country the clerk never heard of

He just put's it into foreign & lets someone else work it out.

IBAN is just the account number……. SEPA payments in CHF do not work.

There is no ‚IBAN‘ transfer

Ofc there is.

Google what IBAN means……

Not in relation to what you mistakenly said.

Nonsense, I do it all the time!

Tom

IBAN is just another name for bank account.

Yes, of course it is a bank account transfer. And the cost are related to what type of transfer it is, foreign payment, foreign currency payment, SEPA (EUR only), local transfer, all use an IBAN but the cost is different…..

Without selling a stamp?

When I was at Uni I had a side job at the post office for a while.

I worked in sorting international parcels. It was a lucrative job as it involved night work that payed a premium.

Although the vast majority of parcels were correctly addressed, we always had one or two every night that required some creative thinking or sleuthing.

But we never had one that we didn't work out in the end.