Due to the recent price changes by the various cantonal banks and some personal reshufflings I’m tempted to revisit my setup currently relying on having both bank accounts and credit cards with the same firm.
Most separate credit card offers I’ve seen (LX M&M Gold cards; AmEx Cashback; etc) come with hefty forex conversion fees that make even the in-built goodies unattractive.
What are some known, working and cheap combinations of private bank accounts and separate credit cards that work for daily retail banking and regular spending outside of Switzerland? Especially if you frequently travel to, and spend in, the Eurozone, UK and perhaps North America, and occasionally rent a car / book a hotel which require credit cards (of the post-paid version)
Wise is fine, but it’s still not a credit card was trying to avoid having to split between bank account, separate credit card provider for CHF (majority spend), and a third one (Wise, Revolut, N26, yadda)
Raiffeisen or ZKB with the Cumulus credit card. Raiffeisen is interesting if you use the member benefits (which offset the 50 CHF fee for the debit card); otherwise, ZKB is completely free.
In my opinion, the Cumulus card is a good compromise due to the benefits it offers, such as the ability to withdraw cash for free at Migros locations and reasonable exchange fees if you don’t use the card daily abroad. This is, in my opinion, the most flexible and minimalist duo, without needing accounts or services from other banks or fintechs.
The other completely free option is at Migros Bank. You can have the account, debit card, and credit card with the same provider. However, Migros’ app ecosystem is not user-friendly and doesn’t match the level of its peers. To my knowledge, it is the only bank that literally offers everything for free (account, debit card, and credit card).
Are we ignoring in this setup that ZKB is free, but has zero interest? If you have 10k and 1% interest (such as with Yuh currently), then that equals a opportunity cost of 100 CHF/year when going with ZKB.
Only reason I see why to use ZKB over Yuh for the pure banking account, is the possibility to open a shared account with another person.
My setup:
Yuh (“nice” interest, zero cost on the banking package)
Amex Cashback (only for inland use)
Revolut for foreign transactions
→ this setup only works if you rarely to never need a credit card abroad. I always use Revolut and in the worst case Amex would be there to the rescue, but never needed it.
10,000 may be a lot, but 5,000 is definitely not unusual. I still can’t pay my rent, health insurance etc. with VT.
So it’s a 50 CHF opportunity cost, if you like.
But agree with the mortgage, not sure whether I would even want to get this from Yuh, as unpersonalized/anonymous they feel.
Indeed, I hadn’t considered the aspect of interest as this was not the main point in OP’s quest for optimization.
Taking this into account, it seems that Raiffeisen might be a better option. Depending on the region, Raiffeisen offers up to 1.1% on savings accounts, which is not only more attractive than what ZKB offers but also more advantageous than Yuh. Additionally, Raiffeisen provides great flexibility and extensive availability across Switzerland, as well as all necessary daily services, including joint accounts, mortgages, etc + the e-banking and app environment is working great.
I think it is possible to optimize even further by primarily using SwissQuote as a bank and broker. To my knowledge, SwissQuote’s debit card is the only card that offers a form of cashback as trading credit, which can be used to cover transaction fees for purchasing stocks, ETFs, etc (Yuh offer comparable privilege but missing the fact that you can’t have all the retail banking services with Yuh). In this sense, it would be, from a minimalist perspective, the most optimal account that allows both recovering cashback daily by using the debit card and paying abroad with a relatively low, albeit not optimal, conversion rate.
However, this only works if you exclusively use the SwissQuote debit card and do not use credit cards like Amex Cash Back or Certo. In this context, I think the Cumulus card would be the ideal backup credit card. However, this combination generates certain fees that would need to be covered with relatively high daily expenses.
I believe he is talking about the safety buffer, which explains the recommendation to keep 10,000 francs in a savings account.
I previously looked at Raiffeisen as well and came to the conclusion that it is not worth it due to the costs you pay for the Debitcard (50/year). I also don’t like that you have to move money between accounts. If I get salary on the 24th and have to pay a bill on the 15th the next month, I don’t want to go into ebanking, put it to the savings account and then a day before you pay the bill, you move it back to win a few cents of interest in the end.
Thats the advantage of Yuh, you get your interest on your salary account where money flows in and out.
The emergency fund you can put on a savings account, I agree. (Unless you mean something else with safety buffer.) But if you have regular bills to pay with it, I wouldn’t call that safety buffer, but just your normal money.
I havent’ checked Swissquote in detail, but if you use IBKR for trading (cheaper) then I guess using it as a bank wouldn’t be better than using Yuh, which is owned by Swissquote (and Postfinance), no?
I pay all my bills (rent, health insurance, etc.) within 2-3 days after the salary arrives, what is leftover gets invested immediately. All my other expenses I pay with the Certo credit card. The interest I’d get for these few days a year would be less than CHF 5, absolutely not worth it to optimize that xD
As I mentioned earlier, the Raiffeisen account is interesting if you take advantage of the benefits offered as a member; otherwise, you can simply use the account without requesting the debit card. And this way, as long as you have regular income deposits into your account, this combination is also completely free.
I think it’s interesting for good management to transfer money from one account to another and not let it fall into an all-purpose account like Yuh. This allows me to precisely and finely manage the money I need during the month, the money I can save, and the surplus, which, after three months, is added to my investments with my broker.
I set up autopay for anything coming through eBill (transfer on due-date), and would just do the big regular items (rent, quarterly medical insurance, GA train fare) via recurring transfers from savings to checking on the day before. Obviously when I started this (during ZIRP days) the focus wasn’t on reducing opportunity costs.
IMO, it would be preferable to separate the private account + (optional) debit card and the credit card, to use two different providers. Extreme minimalism still carries some risks, such as not being able to make payments if all services are grouped with one provider. Therefore, I prefer to use one bank for my daily operations and a credit card service from another bank to avoid these negative scenarios.
Furthermore, although UBS consolidates everything, the interest rates on the savings account are significantly lower than those offered by other banks, as are the withdrawal limits per month and per year. In this regard, competitors’ offers seem more advantageous.
Side note: I can recommend to check, if it makes sense to take Amex Green/Classig with MR-Booster and to have the insurance coverage through a provider as e.g. TCS.
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was trying to avoid having to split between bank account, separate credit card provider for CHF (majority spend), and a third one (Wise, Revolut, N26, yadda)