Dear expats,

I have learned it the hard way. I did an account transfer from saving account to the normal account, to execute immediately on the same day, on the cellphone.

Then a red line appears, reading that you will be charged 1% for the amount over CHF 50,000. Indeed, CS has no interest to help me cancel this transaction.

Read the fine prints. I used the saving account only this time to just to explicitly make a budget for something in future and paid for it.

I would actually suggest cancel the saving account immediately if you are with Credit Suisse to prevent future expensive mistakes. The normal account has a limit of CHF 500,000 per annual. With ZKB, there is no such limit. I don't see anything similar on PostFinance however they charge interest for any account with more than CHF 100,000 in it. UBS is somewhat similar to Credit Suisse.

They are also very strict on the 3 month notice rule. The notice expires after 15 days if by the date the transfer is not yet made.

My overall experience with CS is negative because they always try to sell you a higher package in the phone conversation.

With UBS I tried to do something similar. My account advisor put a stop on it and called me.

Noticed similar constraints with SZKB with different limits, but they have so far always foregone these fees when I called and complained.

Annoying, if even they might show leniency. Important to ask when signing up.

What you do is shift the money from the saving account to what you call the normal account, then make the payment from that. That's what ebanking is for.
Norma procedure for me for years now.

hey, they have to make up the money somewhere after screwing up royally on archegos etc.

This is very kind!

Give them an interest then. "I will move my account elsewhere". That should do it.

Years ago now but this did not work with UBS - they would still apply the 50K limit. Difference is they stopped the transfer from going through so you would have to call them and figure it out. Not this situation where you are then charged 1% after holding your money for yrs for free ....

yup. i had this problem too. i almost missed the deadline for the house deposit payment because of this.

Same... I then suggested that unless the fee was waived, and the trasnfer done that same week (buying a house) I would move my account elsewhere.

I was asked to assure them that I would maintain my UBS account as my primary spending account, and then all was fine. Fees waived.

Had this issue with UBS too. In the end they allowed me to transfer from savings to personal account, after around 3 months or so.

I don't put anything into the "savings" account now. It pays no interest anyway so there's zero benefit.

Saving accounts are usually free in the banking package. Open one for each 50k you keep there and problem solved. You can even label them according to their purpose if you want.

Well at least with Postfinance this doesn't work.
The conditions apply to all savings accounts as a whole.

It's fairly clearly laid out in the T's & C's for this type of account. You screwed up and the bank is applying the T's & C's. You may be frustrated that the bank is not showing any goodwill, but ultimately the screw-up is your's not the bank's.

And I think that you will find that most banks do have withdrawal limits on savings accounts. You say that the ZKB has no such limits, but that is not true. Here are the conditions from the ZKB Sparkonto:

"Sie können jederzeit Beträge bis CHF 10'000.– pro Monat ohne Betragskündigung zurückziehen, zum Beispiel abheben oder überweisen. Für höhere Beträge beträgt die Frist für die Betragskündigung drei Monate. "

Up to 10'000 a month without notice. Larger amounts need 3 months notice.

Banks screw up often enough, but don't blame them when they stick to the rules that you accepted when you opened the account.

Similar conditions on savings accounts apply at all banks.


I screwed up once with Postfinance and they were super nice. They cancelled the fee and seemed ok to waive it once in a while if you warn them in advance.
A friend also had the situation with UBS. They showed some flexibility but were not as nice.
Try to negotiate, make sure you argument with any change in rules/rates they have done recently and try to make them think that the money will come back quickly to get invested (or that a mortgage will come) because you are looking at the "market" (stocks or houses whatever)

Why bother though, if it pays no interest?

May be useful to somebody who is saving for particular things and wants the money separated, but I have no use for that.

Oh I didn't mean saving account because none of them make sense.

There is no limit with the normal private account. With CS, 500K per year. You may say it's enough but if you trade stocks, deposit & withdrawal, etc, it's going to be over the limit very quickly.

The matter is not that you screw up. It is that you are paying for nothing, and paying just to feel yourself stupid, so that you don't want to screw up any more, because the game is designed on their favor. Isn't this a strong signal of keeping away from such situation? That's my point. Many old Swiss I encountered in business say that they love more and more cash.

Thanks for the head up - I don‘t pay administrative fees as I am categorised as a bank employee (UBS). I also need to transfer large sums from my income to my savings account soon, and will not do this until I have checked all terms and conditions with my bank, as it‘s sure to be ridiculously expensive, even with proffered conditions.

You don’t keep your investment proceeds in a private account though. You use a current account, which doesn’t have any withdrawal limits.

It really isn’t difficult to find and read the account conditions!