My plan to leave PostFinance. Am I missing anything?

1

Hi all
I am moving out of Postfinance, where I have 170k cash + 35k third pillar (I am investing a lot after years of not doing it, so that amount will never be higher, in fact it will go lower)
Most banks only protect your money up to 100k. Therefore I am considering splitting:

  • third pillar with VIAC
  • Primary: 100k with Migros Bank.
  • Secondary: 70k with Neon: I like the free account and free payments abroad. I don’t like that I can’t send money to IB.
  • Credit card remains with Cumulus (I shop in Migros mainly)

**Am I right that by having 2 accounts I will be protected up to 200k? Do you see any flaw on this plan? **
Thanks a lot in advance!

2

You can send money from Neon to IB and also the other way. I’m always doing it.

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3

Me too.

IBKR accepts CHF deposits, and Hypothekarbank Lenzburg is just like any other account.
Sending other currencies through an intermediary (such as TransferWise, which are used by Neon for transfers in non-CHF currency) may not work or be prohibited.

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4

That’s interesting because I got the other impression reading ThePoorSwiss, perhaps this wasn’t possible before?
"I keep Migros Bank as my primary bank account these days because it is currently not possible to send money to Interactive Brokers from Neon. " (Neon Bank Review 2021: The Best Swiss Digital Bank - The Poor Swiss)

Nevertheless I would still benefit from 200k protection with Neon + Migros.

5

The thing that would keep me from having the Migros Bank as my primary is that you pay for incoming transactions. I find that discouraging. Every refund, every incoming Twint payment, you pay for. Not much, but still and it accumulates.

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6

I agree, I also don’t like that. I will keep investigating and may even have Neon as primary and Migros as secondary (for the 200k safety) Specially now that according to the answers you can transfer from Neon to IB :slight_smile:

7

You could also open an account with ZAK. You can definitively transfer to IB from them as well. Raiffeisen, CSX, Yuh (for the moment), BCV, CA Nextbank are also free, even if you have to meet some conditions with some (like minimum balance).

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8

I have been transferring money from neon to IB for more than a year without any problem.

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9

Is that Transfer free? Asking because in the Neon website I read " Transferring money abroad At the mean exchange rate
0.8 - 1.7% fees"

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Almost two years here.

This applies to non-CHF and/or non-domestic transfers.

I did just double-check my Neon account and IBKR deposit history:
I’ve been depositing to IBKR from my Neon account since august '19.
Without a hitch or any fee charged.

“The reason is that they do not allow all the necessary fields to send a transfer to a U.S. entity with a Swiss bank account in the app”

On another look, they do require to indicate the beneficiary country for CHF transfers to CH IBAN.
And that “drop-up” menu looks indeed a bit “funny” (selected entries):

  • Algeria :heavy_check_mark:
  • Angola :heavy_check_mark:
  • Argentina :heavy_check_mark:
  • Bolivia :heavy_check_mark:
  • Bosnia and Herzegowina :heavy_check_mark:
  • Botswana :x:
  • Brazil :heavy_check_mark:
  • Canada :heavy_check_mark:
  • Chile :x:
  • China :heavy_check_mark:
  • Colombia :heavy_check_mark:
  • Dominican Republic :heavy_check_mark:
  • Ghana :heavy_check_mark:
  • India :heavy_check_mark:
  • Indonesia :heavy_check_mark:
  • Israel :x:
  • Kazakhstan :heavy_check_mark:
  • Latvia :heavy_check_mark:
  • Malawi :heavy_check_mark:
  • Montenegro :heavy_check_mark:
  • Nigeria :heavy_check_mark:
  • Pakistan :heavy_check_mark:
  • Philippines :heavy_check_mark:
  • Russian Federation :heavy_check_mark:
  • Senegal :heavy_check_mark:
  • South Africa :heavy_check_mark:
  • Syrian Arab Republic :heavy_check_mark:
  • Taiwan :heavy_check_mark:
  • Thailand :heavy_check_mark:
  • Tunisia :heavy_check_mark:
  • Turkey :heavy_check_mark:
  • Ukraine :heavy_check_mark:
  • United Arab Emirates :heavy_check_mark:
  • United States of America :x:
  • Uruguay :x:
  • Venezuela :heavy_check_mark:

(:heavy_check_mark: = available, :x: = unavailable)
No idea why they’re listing Bolivia and Venezuela but not Uruguay or Chile.
Malawi but not Botswana? Syria but not Israel? Mexico and Canada but not the USA?

That said, I’ve selected UK instead of US for IBKR in Greenwich CT, and the transfers do go trough.

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11

Thanks a lot to everybody!

12

The problem is that you cannot select “United States” as the country of the beneficiary and the address given by IB is in the United States. But I have tried like indicated in this forum to use United Kingdom and the money arrived directly to IB. So I guess it works :slight_smile: I will update the article accordingly.

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