New banking setup [2022]

Banks, Insurances & Third Pillar
1

I take the liberty of reopening the subject now that new products have appeared on the market:

UBS me, for 8.-/month (with 10’000.- in account) includes all the necessary services as well as the Classic credit cards of UBS. Interesting price/quality ratio considering the quality of their applications. No idea about the level of customer service.

Migros Bank now offers the new Visa Free with interesting (minimal) insurance. 7500.- to keep on the account, cost of 0.20 CHF per incoming transaction (P2P payment and TWINT are not considered as incoming payment), free Visa Debit card and TWINT since 2021. The opportunity cost is more interesting than the BCV offer which requires 10K in account. No idea about the quality of the applications and the customer service (any reviews?). Serious challenger in my opinion as a traditional bank.

2

I’ve been a happy customer for 5 years now. Now that they also changed from Maestro to VISA debit card, it’s even better. You have e-Bill available.

The applications could be a little bit more shiny, but they are working fine for my needs (desktop and mobile version). You still have local branches in most bigger cities, and customer service was excellent when I needed it (didn’t happen too often though). One of the things which is bugging me is that they are often doing maintenance during the weekend, but I think that’s a minor problem.

Being with Migrosbank has saved me a lot of fees during the last 5 years. If you pay 8.- per month for UBS, that’s 480.- saved on banking fees.

3

agree on your message.

if I may add, I still see as a limitation the need of having the app installed in the pc or/and in the mobile and the need of going from one device to another with non negligible amount of job.
o would prefer the classic online interface with the 2-factor authentication (like CS, UBS, …)

nevertheless, for me Migros-Bank is very very good

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4

I’m fine with FinPension for 3a, and with IB as a brokerage firm.

So I need now is regular banking, hopefully cost free.

  • with a decent auto-categorizing/budgeting feature
  • with a good-enough netbank
  • with a mobile app for biometric authentication and scanning bills
  • with eBill / direct debit
  • with a free “EC” or Mastercard, optionally a second one free as well

Neon is free and shareable, but it’s mobile-only and it’s a bit of a pain (I need my desktop web access).

Anything else, before I look over to Comparis?
I’m ready to bite the bullet for UBS if they are decent in the points above.

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5

Maybe CSX could be another option? It’s a modern mobile based thing, but you can also login to the regular CreditSuisse system if you really need that.

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6

here’s a good overview with all the digital banks.
https://www.digitalmedia.ch/ratgeber/smartphone-banken-im-vergleich/

As CSX does not allow GooglePay and ApplePay, for me it’s out of play.

I’ll probably stay with Neon and will bite the bullet for the web app. Otherwise it seems to do everything I want.

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7

Unlikely with all your requirements.
Is 8CHF/month (at UBS for example) really that much compared to your total NW / income / expenses?
Price of less than 2 coffees for a peace of mind and all the needed features - I would say it’s worth it.

I am with UBS and happy for the last 7+ years.

P.S. Now they apparently seem to have a promo offer of 0.3% reduction on the mortgage rates for clients (not that I need it, but I think I read you might soon).

8

it’s not 8 CHF cause that’s only the account fees.
If you also use your card, especially abroad, the fees can go to 5-600 CHF a year (Kassensturz test: Banken-Apps im Test: Smartphone-Banken haben tiefere Gebühren im Ausland | 2020 | Kassensturz | SRF - YouTube).

You can hedge against this with Revolut, sure. But Neon seems to have a sweet spot in the middle. We’ll see.

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9

It all depends on your interest and where your priorities lie. But on the principle of paying to have your money in a bank, I find that not very efficient, given the current market offer.

I think that the best compromise at the moment is with the Migros bank.
For 0,20 CHF per money entry, keeping 7500.- in account, the opportunity cost is for me unbeatable (better than the offer of the BCV with everything offered from 10K in account).
I haven’t tried the Migros Bank offer yet, but I definitely intend to try it and make up my own mind (and I have tried CSX, BCV, UBS and Raiffeisen).

10

ugh…

no way, really In what world do these guys live in?! :roll_eyes:

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11

I consider that to be an awful compromise for time.

You get 1% cash back and in return you need to:

  • hand-transfer the money to your CC account every month
  • not forget the time or face hefty pentalties
  • manually categorize your entries on the debit account side to keep track of spending

I personally use my CC only for larger items as the risks hanging are larger than the 1% cash back benefit.

12

? Imo it’s a bit of an overstatement…

Point 1 takes 5 seconds… point 2 you have to take care of for any bill so not really an issue

I can second point 3 but this is an issue only for people willing to keep track in a detailed way of their spending (not the case for everyone here)

13

They seem to plan launching web-based banking this year.

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14

E-Bill plus automatic bill confirmation do the job.

I have only one entry: credit card expenses.

15

Yeah you seem not to care about tracking expenses, which is fine then, I guess :slight_smile:

16

I calculate my expenses, but I am not categorizing them.

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17

not sure what calculating means in this context, but it seems you’re not tracking expenses, which I said is fine as it’s a personal thing. I’m not happy with a 4k bill at the end of the month that said “CC expenses”.

To each his own.

18

Go with Zürcher Kantonalbank. CHF 1 per month for all the services you are looking for.

19

Can you share a link where you found that information? I checked for banking packages at ZKB, and the cheapest one including a CC is 8.- per month (click)

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20

Privatkonto für Ihre persönlichen Bankgeschäfte in CHF

Maestro card is 40 CHF/year (3.33 CHF/month) as an option.

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