According to this article, Credit Suisse / UBS offers pretty good conditions for short term deposits at the moment (1.8% for 3M)
1 Like
I see that I need to open such an account. Anything I’d be giving up by opening it?
Do you already have a Girokonto @ DKB?
Then you can simply open the Tagesgeldkonto over the App or the website, and transfer money there from your Girokonto or from elsewhere.
I don’t see that one is giving anything up in any way, the cash is fully available on the Tagesgeldkonto. One just has to keep in mind to top up one’s Girokonto before it runs dry.
3.80% at WiLLBe
(20 char)
I got suspicious because indeed I have a girokonto already. If the conditions are the same, why don’t they just pay interests on that account without me having to open a new one? Maybe by doing this many will miss out on the interests?
Isn’t the DKB savings account limited? Per terms - https://dok.dkb.de/pdf/plv_pk_sparprodukte.pdf - the rate of 3.5 is time limited “Zinssatz gilt im Zeitraum vom 01.08.2023 bis 31.01.2024”. Means to me it will be lower come February or they do a new offer.
I opened wiLLbe last week (EUR+CHF) and it went well so far.
No idea… Maybe like you say, minority of people actually get active, and the active ones open the Tagesgeldkonto and stay at DKB instead of going elsewhere.
Indeed, but I expect a certain interest level at DKB in relation to Central Bank rates to be maintained. IMO it doesn’t automatically imply lower come Feb.
And wiLLBe could change rates at any time, they don’t even have to wait till Feb 2024 like DKB 
But don’t get me wrong, wiLLBe is an equally good offer.
On this topic - does anyone know - I assume a DKB will withhold the German “25-prozentige Abgeltungssteuer (Kapitalertragsteuer) plus Soli” for foreign account holders also?
Is there a way to tell DKB that one is not taxable in D-Land or somehow otherwise get this back? Probably not in a simple way?
Probably at least it is recognised as a tax credit in CH acc. to DTA.
This may make wiLLBe a better place for money from Swiss tax residents than DKB?
A long time ago when I had a DKB account, this was fairly simple. I had to fill in and submit the form “Erklärung für Zwecke der Abstandsnahme vom Kapitalertragsteuerabzug”, declaring that I’m not subject to German income taxes.
Whatever the reason, (almost) all legacy banks are differentiating between payment (chequing) and savings accounts. Even many of the new app-based online banks do (though they may call it „Spaces“ or whatever.
There shouldn’t be WHT on interest to non-residents: Withholding tax (WHT) rates
I think I can confirm this from personal experience, as I have never seen WHT deducted on my interest from German banks (though with DKB I haven’t really paid attention) due to the small amounts of interest from the.
As a new investor what is the recommended action here? Both my and my gf have a sizeable amount of CHF in the bank ~100k each. We might be doing a real estate deal soonish 6m-12m but it’s not guaranteed so something without too many limits would be great, but we can commit for shorter times as well or do a mix of both. I’ve started investing in ETFs/stocks recently but she is very much risk averse and would very much be happier with something guaranteed.
I see a lot of people recommending willbe. is that considered as safe as having the funds in a bank in Switzerland? Also the interest rate is 1.55% in CHF vs 3.80% in EUR. I guess that is down with the franc continuing to become stronger and stronger but I wonder what people are using. If we do end up doing a RE deal it would be in EUR so there’s that.
Lastly we both have accounts with UBS so if there’s an option there it would be convenient even if less efficient. I see what @oslasho mentioned above with the fixed term deposit rates but I don’t really understand what a price of 1.159 would mean in terms of %p.a. I also saw in another post that UBS has quite a few offers at like 1.75% but for “new money” so if we have the money already in a UBS account we wouldn’t qualify I believe 
We are maxing 3a so that isn’t a problem.
Thank you all in advance!
1 Like
Thanks a lot for the reply.
I guess I can wait for other people to chime in but what would be the main arguments?
It’s just something that we are keeping an eye out so there’s really no probability yet. For sure until the end of the year it won’t be started which basically already guarantees 6 months from now.
as in 1.159% p.a.? So let’s take the 6M rate = 1.179. If I deposit 50k for 6 months then it’s 50.000 * 0.0179 = 895 CHF so I would get 895 * 6/12 = 447.5 CHF extra at the end, is that it? If so that’s quite a difference from the other offers even from UBS. I got a call from UBS recently about investment opportunities, maybe I should have asked that.
I’m already subbed to that post! thanks for all the work there 
1 Like
Thanks once again!
Yes I forgot to include that 1. But it’s a pretty bad deal considering it’s a fixed term as well.
I am opening an account with willbe as I write this. Will probably leave 50k there and forget about it.
I might contact UBS anyway to see what I can do with the remainder of the funds. See if they tell me anything interesting.
Thank you once again @oslasho !!
Let’s see at what point we get the first Kaupthing 2.0 
1 Like
Did you decide to deposit in EUR or CHF at the end?
I’m in a very similar position to yours, I want to do a Real Estate deal that could pop-up any moment. Hopefully before April 2024. (Actually 2 deals, one in CHF and one in EUR).
Can you confirm that if you would like, you could withdraw immediately the money and don’t loose the interest accumulated?
Thank you very much
Swiss residents lost their money when that happened? 
Or they were protected?
I think anything >100k was lost. Seems like a lot, but people got greedy.
Their Luxembourg branch had a filial in Switzerland, that was registered as a proper Swiss bank. So there was the guarantee, but it was 30k max at this time. It was raised to 100k around 2009 I think.
2 Likes
Just realized CIC takes out the 35% of Taxes directly from the account while others like WillBe or IBKR doesnt seem to apply the tax. Any clue why?
Thanks
Different countries, different withholding tax rates.
Switzerland has 35% withholding tax (Verrechnungssteuer) even on interest, other countries don’t.