Yep, I do this too (mostly). Though I also use the DKB Debit for payments in Euro-Area (~50% of my international travel). Wise is great outside Euro-area. And for Euro cash, I withdraw the Euro’s from my Migrobank Euro account in Switzerland (have to plan ahead).
Doesn’t DKB allow only very limited Euro withdrawals from ATM’s, @cubanpete_the_swiss ? Or do you have active status at DKB?
Why not leave 10000 € on your revolut or wise account and filling up four times a year until revolut comes up with a credit card for swiss residents?
you would need to mentally account this as emergency saving, cost would be the lost interest of having an average or 7500€ on your IB
Just checked, seems it is still unlimited and free, but they introduced a monthly fee. They still did not charge that because when opening the account there was no fee and I suppose I will have to sign something.
Too bad, will have to look for a new solution for cash withdrawals…
Ah, or just send money there and if needed back to the wise account every month. Probably will do that…
I just did add an order to send money every month to the DKB account so I will get active state. All free from wise.
I ended up opening an account at Fortuneo Banque. It is the internet bank of a large French mutual bank (Crédit Mutuel Arkéa - similar to Raiffeisen).
I knew the French have a thing for hefty admin processes, but it was more than I expected. You have to speak and write good French. I had to send documents I never sent to anyone, including my complete tax return with complete income and wealth. But the end result is excellent :
I got the Mastercard Gold for free, inclusive of complete travel insurance.
It is entirely free of charge, as long as you use your card at least once a month (I pay a tiny monthly subscription with it).
Transactions are debited in euros on the last business day of the month. I typically exchange and wire the exact amount from Revolut.
It includes convenient virtual cards for internet use: you define the amount limit and the validity limit.
They take absolutely no markup on the exchange rate and are very transparent about it. They send you an email after each transaction (you can deactivate it) with the exact exchange rate, that is typically 15-20bps lower than the ECB rate.
It allows me to keep managing my finances as I did, with 0 on my salary account: as soon as I get my salary on the 25th, I pay all my spending a posteriori, and invest all the remainder.
I would prefer a simpler setup, but I am happy with the outcome, and with having a free account in the eurozone. I very much enjoy Lago Maggiore these days, and would maybe consider a cheap vacation-then-retirement house on the euro side of the border.
Can you get this account as a Swiss citizen and resident?
Dunno about Fortuneo but for another online fr bank (boursobank) you needed an existing french bank account to open it (because it makes KYC/AML easier for them).
IIUC the OP does not have nor want an account abroad
Playing around with the fortuneo website I get stuck early on because they insist on a French phone number.
I am a Swiss citizen and resident. However, it is clear that they are not used to onboarding foreigners. The process was relatively slow and cumbersome.
Over the phone, they were able to register my Swiss mobile number.
Text messages for 2FA don’t seem to pass through: a minute after any login attempt, I always receive an automated phone call (!) that slowly says the 6-digit code.
Hello,
I have just joined this forum, and, after having browsed some articles and posts here previously published, as I have not found my answer, I decided to ask the question here directly. Apologies if requests like this have already been answered, and I was not able to find it.
My need: optimise the way me and my wife spend money in EUR. As Switzerland is small, it happens that we are going sometimes abroad, mainly in the Eurozone, and that we buy things online in EUR. When we do that, whether we use our Cembra MasterCard or our Visa debit BCV card or a bank transfer CHF/EUR, at the end of the year, if I would calculate how much we have spent in currency conversion operations, it would be some money spent in fees.
I was asking myself if it would be possible to have a card in EUR. The card would be backed by a Swiss joint bank account in EUR. This joint bank account would be a secondary one used only for this purpose, and it would have also to include one in CHF, which I would use to receive money from our main bank account in CHF, so that I would not incur in their unfavorable CHF/EUR exchange rate.
So, to resume:
Fees: if there are some fixed costs, I want that the final outcome is more convenient than what we are currently doing.
Check out Radicant or Alpian
Hello and welcome!
There are many discussions on similar topics, here is the latest:
If you share how much you spend per year in EUR, it would also help to decide what solution is more appropriate for you.
I am not aware of convenient joint accounts in EUR from Swiss banks. Does BCV has one and what are the conditions? Otherwise you can get one from Eurozone, e.g. DKB.
The expensive part is CHF to EUR conversion. Here you can check Revolut, Wise, WillBe, Alpian, Radicant.
I spend about €10’000 per year. I mostly convert using Revolut. Any better options?
For you, yes:
get some ETF/stocks distributing in EUR.
convert USD dividends to EUR on IB.
I haven’t tried transferring from IB → Revolut before. I will have to test that.
I do that without any problems (SEPA)
EUR account at Revolut is in your name, so, it might work.
It works. The Euro account at Revolut has a unique IBAN linked to your name. This allows you to transfer funds from IBKR to Revolut EUR.
You can also use Yuh for spending in Euro. If you don’t do the conversions within Yuh, it will work like Revolut minus cash withdrawals at ATMs.
