Cheap bank, cheap service…
You can’t expect wagyu when you’re paying for cervelat.
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oh…i forgot this:
Starting February 28, 2025, CHF balances in your regular account will no longer earn interest.
edit: a bit of positive + explanations. From March, the normal account will give 0 interest. The savings will give instead 0.275% (paid monthly …for monkey brains 
(see other thread, no offense meant). There are no withdrawal limit, which is cool. So all in all they are still better than the others. Especially if they FX is really good.
Negative point: 60chf for the physical card (which I hate since I opened before the 31dec but decided to wait for the card until the end of the festivities).
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Is this for everybody? I thought it’s for free… Anyway, I’ll close the account/card. 200chf in qoqa bonus was good enough (hope there is no negative impact from the t&c in closing after just 3 months.
Yes for everybody.
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You can do it without any problem; I did it myself. However, you need to be patient and not hesitate to contact support to ensure the request is processed. It took three months to close the account, and I received no updates. I only noticed it when I saw that my IBAN had disappeared from the account… Their processes are seriously flawed - truly an amateur « bank », both in communication and execution.
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Is that the “private” part of “private banking”?
Just got an email conversation with Alpian team because of my cancellation request. The 60 CHF for the card is a one-time fee and this was included in the Qoqa offer. So there is no further costs for the account or card for me. In that case, I’ll keep it just in case.
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Bei SWISS4.0 SA handelt es sich um ein sogenanntes Micro-Start-up mit rund 250 Kundinnen und Kunden.
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“In the event of a FinTech institution’s bankruptcy, client assets are neither privileged nor subject to deposit protection.”
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Just to be sure
Does this fintech have anything to do with ALPIAN?
I replied to @xerox5003’s post he made a year ago. In a sense it was somehow a competitor as it was catering to the “private banking” sector, although a bit more luxurious. It doesn’t really fit the Alpian thread, it’s just that it was discussed here and I didn’t want to create a thread just for that…
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Please have a look at the thread below. This doesn’t reflect well on Alpian. It seems Alpian blocked the account of an account holder without explanation.
Care to explain?
Hi @Abs_max
We understand your concern and take this seriously. At Alpian, our clients’ trust matters most. While we can’t discuss specific accounts publicly, we never block an account without a valid reason, typically due to regulatory or security requirements.
We’ll contact this person directly to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
Edit: Our CMO has responded. You can find his answer here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SwissPersonalFinance/comments/1jb006h/comment/mhqanmr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Thank you very much!
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Thanks for taking time
My analysis on Swiss 4.0 was quite good 
I also think Alpian has the same risk of bankruptcy, because their business model is not sustainable.
Based on the last data, the yearly operating costs are around 22 millions a year. I would assume it would be even higher recently based on the strong marketing campaigns.
The only revenue (on my knowledge) are the 0.75% fee on assets. The AUM needs to be more than 3-4 billions to break-even.
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Majority shareholder in Alpian is Intesa Sanpaolo which is very large entity in private banking.
I think if Alpian doesn’t make enough money, they can always absorb them into the main company
As at 31 December 2024, the Intesa Sanpaolo Group had total assets of 933,285 million euro, customer loans of 421,512 million euro,direct deposits from banking business of 584,508 million euro and direct deposits from insurance business of 177,430 million euro.
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I believe Alpian is not long for this world.
I hope I’m wrong, as these new fintechs are delivering lots of disruption and value for consumers, but the fintech market is consolidating. neon is looking for a buyer, radicant is bleeding money. The landscape will look a bit different in 3 years.
CSX is/was one of the apps, which I really liked. But unfortunately, UBS decided to continue with the shitty Key4.
Also wondering, what will happen with:
- Kaspar&
- Key4
- Yuh
- Zak
- Yapeal
- (Are there more?)
Foreign Fintechs, active in CH:
- N26
- Revolut
- Wise
As you say, any default more will just strenghten the old dinosaurs position. In the end, probably Key4 and Yuh (and Revolut and Wise) will survive in CH.
I really liked Alpian, in general. But when seeing the not finished app, spelling errors in various languages, an IBAN for inflows and a separate IBAN for outflows (I mean, what the fuck?) and many other things, mentioned in this thread it‘s like, one published an unfinished app with an unproven business plan.
The biggest mistake in my eyes was to publish ads on preispirat(dot)ch and on 20min(dot)ch - a desperate move, combined with several adjustements regarding the pricing.
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My prognosis:
- Alpian, Kaspar& - will die.
- Yuh, Zak, Key4 - supported by their mother companies, will stay.
- N26, Revolut, Wise: Switzerland is but a small market for them. They have economy of scale, they will stay.
Revolut will probably do IPO within 3 years.
N26 is Euro only, so not much adjustment needed to operate outside of EU/Eurozone. If there are expensive regulatory measures coming in CH or anywhere else, they can quit on a moment’s notice.
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I believe the business model of banks involve a suite of activities which makes the operations work.
I am going to exclude brokerages because it’s already well covered by Saxo , Swissquote & Interactive brokers. I don’t see any reason for anyone else to win here.
Most Swiss Fintechs promotes themselves as “free” and don’t perform credit related activities. So they don’t have many revenue streams. Without revenue streams the only way to grow is to offer freebies to people who like freebies. But people who like freebies don’t have much loyalty and would switch providers for 100 bucks.
So any fintech which doesn’t charge any fees for anything & don’t offer loans is only going to survive if they target wealth management & charge either custody fees or management fees (for active wealth management)
For wealth management , the market is tough because high worth individuals work with private banking , family offices & large banks because for them trust is important. Smaller investors don’t move a needle and would not be enough to have significant AUM.
But I wouldn’t say no one will survive. I think one or two might survive like how Finpension & VIAC survived for 3a.
I think Alpian has 100 Million in AUM but I don’t understand how can they have 22 Million in costs (as pointed above in a comment from someone). That makes no sense.
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