Comparison between Yuh and Revolut

Banks, Insurances & Third Pillar
1

Because this may be useful for others, I am double-posting my answer in a new thread to make it easier to find for others. If I had a blog, I’d post it there, but I don’t have time for that.
I hope the admins don’t mind.

Original thread: Experience with ZAK (Rant):

Yuh is a full Swiss bank account and can be used for receiving wages and paying all kinds of bills. If you need a real bank account, it will do that.
You get to buy crypto, some shares and ETFs, directly within the app. Fractional shares are available now. The offer is decent, fees are around 1 % for foreign currencies and I think 1 % on top for crypto.

Fees for payments in foreign currencies with or without card are about 1 %, which is less than most banks.

You get a Swiss debit Mastercard, which currently does not work with Google, Apple and Samsung Pay, but Google and Apple are planned.
There’s a cashback program, in which you around 0.02 CHF per payment back in their own coin which is supposed to grow in value.

Main drawback:
Not a real credit card. Because it’s a debit card, you cannot always assume that you can pay for deposits in hotels and for rental cars. It may or may not work.

Revolut is not a full bank account.

  • It has its strength in foreign currency transactions.
  • It hardly charges any conversion fees. This is a big plus for me and the main reason why I use it.
  • You can buy many kinds of crypto from within the app.
  • You can receive money in other currencies than CHF.
  • If you use up to 1000 CHF per month in foreign currencies, you can save around 30 CHF per month by using Revolut compared to other banks with the free card.

Drawbacks:

  • You cannot pay bills with a Swiss reference number or QR code. You can do IBAN payments, though. No eBills either.
  • Some payments cannot be made because the recipient gets a “paid through Revolut on Behalf of Your Name”. This can be a bother, e.g. with DeGiro and other foreign services which do not accept Revolut originated payments.
  • Customer support is not that good. Just don’t do anything funny like getting huge amounts transferred to your account suddenly, your account may be blocked. I haven’t had any bad experiences, but there a some horror stories going around.
  • Not a real credit card. Revolut cards are not accepted in some places and cannot always be used for rental or hotel deposits.
  • No ebills

It also has a freemium model that make sense if you use foreign currencies a lot.

If you want to subscribe to either Yuh or Revolut, please DM me for a referral link.

2 Likes
2

Drawback: with Revolut, IMHO, the fees are very high compared to other.

Is there any other alternative to Revolut that allows several currencies linked to the same account? and/or having different IBAN ?

Yuh:

It seems they have good conversion rated accordingly to this pdf.

3

Oh, their marketing department made an excellent job!

1 Like
4

I could imagine… :sweat_smile: thanks for bringing this up!

5

Wise gives you that.

3 Likes
6

Probably because they made the transaction with the currencies of the country. They don’t talk about the fact that they convert CHF into EUR/USD/whatever with a cost of 0.95% BEFORE the transaction.

1 Like
7

The crypto and forex fees are good compared to other banks.

Forex:
If you use Yuh as an everyday account and don’t spend much in foreign currencies, you should be fine.

Wise offers several currencies. Also use it, come to think of it.

Crypto:
Also, as long as you don’t trade, but long time speculate, the fees don’t matter all that much.

Every crypto platform I’ve use charges at least 0,75 % with unclear spreads.

Important note:
You don’t get a crypto wallet with either Yuh or Revolut. It’s all just for using it as an asset.

8

I remember that one. Really wonder :thinking: how they pulled that of.

Also note it’s a one time payment of 10 EUR.
Not exactly representative. Could have been a short term movement in the exchange rate.

9

Maybe not for CHF but for any orher currency they give you an UK IBAN which is under your name.

10

Not as cheap, and with less bells and whistles (Crypto, miles) - but arguably the better and more trustworthy multi-currency account. With more country IBANs than Revolut.

Not every IBAN account is necessarily a „bank“ account.
Not even every personal IBAN account is.

IBAN accounts can and are provided by entities without having - or not using - a proper banking licence.

11

Definitely agreed! They have upfront fees, but in my experience have always been more helpful with customer support and honestly, the upfront transparency is much more appreciated than fees getting tacked on later because of some limit being broken somewhere (looking at you Revolut)

12

Comparing Yuh and Revolut is a bit like comparing apples with oranges, as they have very different business models.

Revolut is an over-the-top (as in OTT) financial service provider. It doesn’t engage in banking. Yuh is a product offered by a bank (ok, two banks).

Revolut lets you open what are essentially CFDs on crypto, stocks, etc. Yuh lets you buy and hold real crypto, stocks, etc.

Revolut pools account balances in collective accounts at third-party banks (with the exception of the new Lithuanian personal bank accounts), which means depositor protection is sketchy. Yuh gives you a regular Swiss private account with regular Swiss depositor protection.

Both have their place and use cases. But they really aren’t the same thing.

13

You’re right, of course, but no one has ever claimed that they were the same.

Revolut solves one problem that is important to me: Cheap forex payments (bank, card etc). Everything else is a nice to have.

One minor point:
Stocks are not available for Swiss clients, only for EU/UK

14

I was pretty happy with Revolut on the whole. I would say one area that it likely beats Yuh would be fast International transfers. For example, transfers to Canada and South Africa often arrived within 1 business day with Revolut. That’s not the case with Swissquote (I’ll assume Yuh as well?)

15

I’m currently trying to decide between Yuh and Neon for my main bank account – I hope it’s ok if I don’t start a completely new thread.

It seems that Yuh is slightly better in:

  • no fee for incoming payment (this is the same as neon)
  • allows splitting money to different pots/projects
  • allows free cash withdrawal every week (2x month with Neon)

Yuh doesn’t have Google Pay/Apple Pay. This doesn’t bother me as I’m currently not using it and they are planning on implementing it soon.

Things I don’t know how to judge:

  • Yuh is a product by Swissquote and Postfinance. Could mean more stability, could also mean slow adaption to innovation.
  • Yuh has a debit and neon a prepaid Mastercard. Both should allow for online payments but the prepaid card is not directly linked to your account – if I understand it correctly.

Any thoughts about which is the better offer atm and in the future?

16

For the future, Yuh will have different subscription offer, so maybe the free one will be limited. With Neon you don’t have to think about FX Currencies at least and you have eBill option, already. I delete my Yuh account because they weren’t better than neon for my use and because for a daily banking app, neon is better for now.

18

In my specific case, I’d have Neon + Revolut or Yuh + Revolut – as Revolut pretty much gives me feeless payment abroad for all my purposes.
E-Bill is an important point though.

A tiered system is also something I fear. I think that might be the case with Yuh and Neon?

19

Neon doesn’t charge a fee for incoming payments.

What about CSX?

1 Like
20

You’re right. I was mixing things up with Migros Bank.

CSX costs 2chf per cash withdrawal. I maybe withdraw 10-15 times a year, not a huge cost but…
Where would you see the advantage over neon? Access to a physical bank? Debit vs Prepaid card?

21

Neon offers eBill, yuh doesn’t. For me the issue would be resolved at this point. And if you don’t use eBill, you should.

1 Like