Hi everyone,
Can someone tell me how to pay cash amounts in USD and EUR to an IBKR account?
And how to take cash in USD and EUR out again from the IBKR account?
In a cheap and easy way of course!
I’m living in Switzerland. I couldn’t find Swiss Neobanks whith Accounts in other Currencies than Swissfrancs accepting Cash.
Thank you in advance
According to the website of IBKR:
Please be aware that it is against Interactive Brokers policy to accept physical currency (cash) deposits. Please make all deposits to your IBKR account by wire transfer, check, direct bank transfer (ACH), or via one of the other methods described above. IBKR will charge a special handling fee of 1% of the deposit amount (minimum $50 fee) for any physical currency deposits.
I therefore see no other way than exchangeing your cash at a local bank or train station or airport.
Why don’t you try a regular bank? If it is a lot of cash it might be the cheapest solution.
regular banks in Switzerland charge high fees, that’s why i was looking for a cheaper solution…
If you want to deposit cash Banknoted in USD, you can do it at UBS by opening a USD account.
Also ZKB has one.
I believe they charge certain fees for physical cash deposits but that is the only way.
I have posted something similar before and I was trying to find options but most banks I called to were not accepting cash deposits at all (Raiffeisen, PostFinance, Migros, etc).
Which banks did you actually find accepting cash and what were those fees approx?
UBS charges fees as per page 16 at link below . But you would need account at UBS.
1% or 2% depending on the amount. That’s a bit high!
Thanks for sharing, let me know if you find any other option out there!
But how all the people having IBKR Deposits with ETF’s in USD and EUR do to take out cash in USD or EUR without converting it to CHF?
I don’t. I’m still in the accumulating phase, so I normally don’t sell ETF shares yet anyway. However, if I was already retired, I would convert to CHF after selling (cheap at IBKR) and then use a credit or debit card with a good exchange rate for USD/EUR payments and cash withdrawals at (foreign) ATMs. I don’t want to keep USD/EUR cash around on any account.
Thanks for your answer.
And if you already had amounts of cash in USD and EUR? How would you transfer them to IBKR to invest in USD and EUR-ETFs without converting the money twice and having too high fees?
Cash will always have much higher costs.
1% is probably fair for foreign currency handling with a swiss bank (you can open a USD or EUR account so that you avoid the conversion fees and only get the cash handling fees)
Transfer them to an EUR or USD account and withdraw from there at an ATM if needed?
You do talk about cash as in bills and coins, right? What amounts are we talking about?
A) Small amounts: Spend them or give them somebody who can, or let them sit in the drawer until I either can spend them or forget about them
B) Large amounts: Get a EUR or USD account at a brick & mortar bank where you can pay in cash, pay their fees.
Do you regularly have large amounts in those currencies, but no bank account to handle them? Could you describe why?
There could be another option:
C) A free (non CH) account like B) and avoid large amounts of cash
I thought you were talking about banknotes and not digital transfers.
If it’s euros and dollars that have been lying around for several years, I would simply deposit them somewhere. Regardless of whether it costs 1% or not. Due to inflation, you’ve lost several per cent in the last few years anyway, so another one per cent won’t matter mutch.
And you lose about ~1% per 3 month currently vs risk free rate.