Banking + credit card combinations [2024 edition]

Solid combo. If I would need shared account I would probably do something similar (apart from the Gold).

Agree. But also less fun to debate about moving to a cheaper/smaller flat :smiley:

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Absolutely.

In terms of simplicity and ease of use, UBS me + key4 standard CC will beat anything mentioned here in this thread for the predictable cost of ~170CHF/y (similar cost-wise to Raiffeisen incl. Debit card + Miles&More Duo + Wise card). The forex rates on their CC are almost as good as Wise, and through key4 you get enough back to buy Migros vouchers with :wink:

Question is what’s more scarce. Money, or time for geeking out on research?

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Haven’t there been solutions suggested that cost CHF 0 instead of CHF 170 that have the same fees?

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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.

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Absolutely. Question is, again, what you’re optimizing for. Paying nothing for financial service is one aspect. Spending as little time as possible is another. A third is maximizing the goodies that come with some combination that increase your quality of life in other ways.

I sum up a bit:

ZKB/AKB/Neon/Yuh all satisfy “free of charge accounts”.

SwissCard Cashback/Certo One give 1% cash on the amount spent.

Raiffeisen Membership + Debit card gives you free access to tons of museums :wink:

AmEx Gold gives reward points that you can use pretty flexibly, and comes with awesome travel insurance.

Wise/Revolut/Neon all satisfy “good for spending in foreign currencies”.

Some of these also have decent rates on savings (Raiffeisen) if not Checkings accounts (yuh)

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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.

Wrong. You don’t need the debit card to get the membership plus. You need to send at least 1250chf per month on the account.

You can probably also put down ten or twenty grand instead of receiving at least AHV-mini money :wink:

ZKB savings account have 10K per month withdrawal limit. So I guess it can effectively be used as current account if needs are not more than 10K

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Are you sure? Isn’t that you need either “mini money” or 20k invested?

At Raiffeisen, it’s either one and/or the other.

Speaking of banking setup, I’d like to share an incident that occurred today. I attempted to send money to my WISE account, which I used regularly in the past but had been inactive for four months. After initiating the transfer, the money never arrived, and I was asked to provide identity verification (which had never happened before). Unfortunately, I couldn’t upload the required documents via the application, for unknown reasons. I had to cancel the transfer, which had already been refunded to me.

Is this procedure new with WISE? I had planned to use this solution for our honeymoon expenses abroad, but if it’s not as reliable as before, I may consider other options like Neon, YUH, or others.

Wise should be very reliable - the inactivity of four months could be the reason, I would check that with them.

Despite I like the big neo-banks abroad, I am the biggest fan of a Swiss juristication, just because of such incidents.

Moreover, I am also a fan of minimalism but in your case, it can make sense to have one or two additional accounts beside Wise - honeymoon expenses are probably higher than normal holidays, I don’t know.

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I started paying the GA with the Cashback Amex card a while ago at the counter. 40 swiss francs for not much hassle.

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I like/use Yuh, but for any foreign transactions it is too expensive. In those cases I use Revolut and so far didn’t have any issues, no matter whether I don’t use it for a while.

If you want to keep it simple and keep your main bank account at the same place as you pay your honeymoon, then Neon would be better (better Fx rates than Yuh, but slightly worse interest on account and more troubles with app connectivity).

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Have been using Wise for sending around money since 2015, occasional ID verification was normal. Ordered a wise card through this thread and the process of snapping my passport on the phone was convenient enough.

Maybe try again with some pocket change, see if that works?

For now, I have no money left in my Wise account, and I don’t know how to send money because I still can’t verify my identity through the app. I’ll try again later from their website. I think I’ll choose Yuh as a backup once the situation with Wise is resolved, so I’ll have two different card providers (Wise = Visa; Yuh = MasterCard).

Did you sent the money with a different bank account than before? This happened to me when I initiated the transfer with Yuh:
Wise requested additional documents to verify my name. I think Yuh only uses and provides first and last name, whereas Wise also checks for the middle name of the sender, which obviously could not be verified. I also had to cancel the transfer because the document upload with wise returned errors.

Long story short: I now use radicant for Fx.

I have free account at BCF (main) + Neon for FX, Radicant for emergency and Certo One as credit card. Using sometimes Revolut to send different currencies to friends abroad.

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No, I have always used the same account to deposit money into my Wise account.
It’s true that my middle name isn’t listed on my main account (I only use it on my identification documents), whereas Wise includes it. I think this causes a discrepancy since the sender and the recipient names aren’t exactly the same. In any case, I will clarify this at the beginning of the week when I initiate a new transfer to Wise and explore the possibility of submitting my identification documents to them.

So, I’m wondering if anybody has seen this offer here: Das Beste vom Banking in einem Paket | Bankpaket top | Bank WIR - Bank WIR

If it’s correct what they claim, then the included Mastercard Debit could be one of cheapest option for payments in foreign currency. According to the info they
a) apply the interbank rate
b) have no addtional fees and commissions for payments
So, this could be on the same level/or even cheaper than Neon, Revolut and Wise.

Does anybody have experience with this?

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