Hello, can anyone tell me what UK banks also have branches in Switzerland . The only one I could find was Credit Suisse that has branches in both countries. Are there any others? I am hoping to open an account here thats valid in the UK to save the hassle when I move there. Not even sure if this is possible. Thanks

HSBC, LLOYDS, CITIBANK are in Zurich.
I believe theres a Lloyds in Geneva also. . .

You did ask for a UK bank with a branch in Switzerland
Those immediately jump to mind. . . .


Good luck. .

Those are private banking, not retail operations.

Barclays are also here, there is a branch in Geneva.

Private banking.

maytree, what are you looking to achieve?

Okay, I have a private bank account with the Post at the moment. I wanted to open another bank account here and transfer my money from the Post to the "new" bank. I was hoping to avoid having to open an account when I got to the UK. We are not talking huge amounts of money just trying to save time on the other end.

I believe you could open a UK account using an address here. Perhaps you could contact the UK banks with information found on the web.

I'd recommend Abbey having used them when I was there.

No - they can't credit check you.
My UK bank won't allow me any new accounts...

You need to go to Isle of Man or Channel Islands and get a GBP account which should play well with uk mainland banking system...

There is no UK retail bank that does retail banking in Switzerland. Even HSBC doesn't have retail activities in CH. If your concern is about transferring money when you will be moving to the UK, it is not very expensive (CHF 10.- fee). If you want to transfer money to CH from the UK it is very expensive (GBP 25.-). If the amount is above GBP 5,000 you can use a FX provider that will transfer the money for free (currenciesdirect.com)

Having done some research, both in the UK high-street and on the web I suspect GBN is correct in stating that no banks have retail activities both in CH and UK. Not even Citibank who even promote themselves as an international retail Bank. My conclusion is that it's not in any Bank's interest to be truely international because they are probably making nice profits from charging us international/currency transation charges.

That said I'd love someone to prove me wrong. I'm working in CH but still have my home in UK. So I'm looking for a retail bank that offers me current account facilities in both countries and free online transfers between accounts in both countries. Or am I just dreaming?

Wessex

As the Irishman said, when asked by a tourist for diections, "I wouldn't start from where you are", you could remove your prohibition on using private banks. Some of them will take you on if you have £50,000+ in total assets, and provide what it sounds like what you want - two bank accounts, one in Sw Fr and one in GBP, with online conversion between the two, and a debit or VISA card to use where you like.

To anticipate your objections: what does it cost? Well, if you're going to use the private bank just as a place to hold a current account, then too much. But if you use it a central place to administer all your investments (dealing account, ISA and pension) then it's better value than having bank account, ISA, pension and dealing account in different places.

Too much bother? Fair enough. But if you're already so annoyed with the life companies who have your UK personal pensions that you're going to take your money away anyway, you can move these and sort out your bank accounts at the same time.

Don't like putting all your eggs in one basket? You're not. You own the investments: the only money you have at risk with the bank is how much you have in the current accounts.

My firm [IWM} are making some special arrangements with one of these - Fairbairn Private Bank in Jersey - to be able to deal with the UK pensions and UK ISAs of our European-resident clients who've still got left-over assets in the UK. I'm hoping to do the same with Bank Sarasin, and Standard Chartered. By all means approach Fairbairn direct, but maybe you'll save time if I make the right introduction.

I'm promoting a new book which touches on these areas, and will giving a talk in Geneva on 17th Dec. If you want to come along, you are welcome and I can give more details. I hope it's allowed to post this link... (apologies if not) talks by Rob NW from Independence

Any branches here with similiar UK names will be offshore/private banking branches. There will be no UK high street 'retail' banks in Switzerland. Going offshore is not as easy as it seems, and I have had a lot of troubel operating out of Jersey HSBC, because no UK high street bank can view offshore accounts and vice versa. It will be as much hassle as foreign banking...there will be excessive charges to transfer money etc. HSBC charge me £25 every time for me to transfer between offshore and UK HSBC accounts.

I hope poor ol' maytree managed to get some banking sorted out
in the intervening two and a half years since the question...
.

I walked into a HSBC branch in the UK this year and withdrew cash from my offshore HSBC account - prearranged but wasn't set up properly, and this wasn't a problem. They could see my account just fine, they just couldn't see the balance and needed a confirmation from the offshore branch that I had the funds.

In the last year I have also done transfers to other people with accounts within the HSBC group and these are free - even the fees brochure says so.

I've been banking offshore in the Channel Islands for over 10 years now and have never has a problem transferring funds and never paid to transfer money unless I wanted to do a same day chaps transfer. Bill payments and standing orders can be set up free through Internet banking.

Our experiences differ. Also , I can guarantee that a UK retail branch cannot see any offshore account details. I worked for both.