New banking setup [2022]

Cheers. So it’s 1.- per month for the plain bank account without any cards. 40.- for Maestro and I assume CC between 70 and 100.-

I still think Migrosbank is the better offer. Was just curious if ZKB somehow changed their pricing (checked last time a year ago or so)

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…may be bit of an overstatement but…

No, they do include a free Kontokarte for free cash withdrawals from their cash machines.

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Also, while I‘m not sure if/when they changed their pricing…

…ZKB also offer a 5 CHF/month package with credit card and Maestro.

You are right. Should have scrolled down more on the link I shared myself… The “Basis” package indeed has a basic credit card included (limit CHF 3’000.-). 2.5% surcharge when paying abroad is a bit high.

I use:

Zak from Bank Cler for all daily spendings (free with visa debit card) and the bank cler private + savings account for salary entry point, big payments and emergency account(1.- per month without a card)

What I like is that you can access their webbanking and transfer money to zak very easily + you have the support by phone if you need anything urgent.

Zak has ebill and the scan function.

If you are interessted pm me for a referral code, that will finance the setup for 25 months :wink:

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…if you have at least 10‘000 CHF of wealth with them.

Given that, you can also get their standalone personal account at only 3 CHF/month and add a free credit card (min. 24 transactions/year, easy-peasy, when you can use it at Migros & coop for an apple or a bottle of water). If you need a bit of cash, you can use their customer card (10 CHF/year) or a secondary account (Neon, Zak or even Wise/Revolut, unless you need lots to pay for all the hookers and blow). Personally, I can’t remember the last time I‘ve used CHF cash though.

I used to have that setup. Only got rid of it when I didn’t use it anymore, due to preferring Neon‘s app over the UBS banking app.

I see compromise and hidden costs everywhere except neon.

Some don’t support ApplePay, some are useless (= too expensive) for paying abroad, some charge for the account and again for the card, some only give you a Maestro for free.

Neon for me ticks all the boxes (twint, applepay, mobile app, auto-categorization, free, cheapest payments abroad, mastercard) with only 2 caveats:

  • no web banking. hopefully it’ll come soon
  • prepaid mastercard instead of a debit mastercard. In practice there shall be no difference here. Juristically the prepaid system is not under the bank guarantee but Neon has mitigated this with the Hypo Lenzburg backing.
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I still have the PF set-up where the PF card is free as well as there is no account fee (as I have also part of my portfolio in E-trade beside the IB part) for additional cards I have cashback cards and Revolut for traveling. It could be simpler agree and PF has decreased a lot since the beginning (biggest point for me was the free cash abroad) but I’m with the impression that we should not pay for a banking solution even if it’s just a small fee. At the end the banksters make money with our money without any risk and no innovation so I do not see a point in supporting them even if it’s just 50CHF/y

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I’m having some titles in e-trading as well, but alas, it’s ridiculously expensive compared to IB, so it’s mostly just paying 90CHF a year to hold 3 titles, which is… not so smart.

My current premise is to replace these 3 with one (the neon one).

  • monthly 2 free cash withdrawals (who still uses cash for anything?)
  • costs close to Revolut abroad
  • free with a free mastercard

As for CC I’m using the free Cumulus Mastercard which is hard to beat anyway. Coop has the same with Visa.

I use the following set up:

  • ZKB private account (CHF 1 per month)
  • No debit card (who needs debit cards if you have credit cards, especially when the debit card costs CHF 40 per year. Moreover, I never withdraw money. If I would like to do so, I could order their “Kontokarte” for free and deposit money as well. Lastly, I want to keep the number of cards on a minimum).
  • Cashback credit card (linked with the ZKB account).
    [- Swiss Miles and More Platinum, which I will terminate next year once I have used all miles for the flights]

With ZKB private account I have:

  • e-banking (one of the best and cleanest interfaces I have seen)
  • Twint
  • ebill
  • and other stuff, which other plans include (e.g. several discounts for events, but I never use it).

If you need a savings account, you can have one for free. Why did I choose ZKB?

  • I live in Zurich and there are plenty of ATM, if I need one (again, I never withdraw money)
  • They have branches in case I have to visit one.
  • One of the biggest banks out there.

In order to complete my setup (to give you an idea):

  • ZKB private account (the above mentioned; operating account)
  • Neon (for fx only)
  • Cashback credit Card (linked with ZKB)
  • Interactive Brokers
  • Swissquote (for cryptos and as a back up, once I exceed a large number of amount on IB. Then I will probably transfer some securities to Swissquote).
  • Viac for pillar 3a and vested benefits
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I‘m interested in your experience with Swissquote. I had once an account with them in my early trading days which was fun, however now as pure buy and hold I think even the PF E-trade which is based on SQ is better as it does not have a quarterly charge (can you remind me how much it is at SQ?). Fully agree that it’s incredibly overpriced compared to IB. However, I still have some 150k there for VWRL and some stocks (BION, HBMN, ZURN and RIO) where I do not see the need to transfer to IB.

From a personal perspective I do not really like Neon to be honest The app is lame compared to Revolut and as mentioned in another topic there are some fees for withdrawal cash abroad which I still do not understand which was not the case with Revolut.

Agreed also that in CH cash is not really essential but you know the golden rule: drugs and hookers only in cash :innocent:

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0.025% per quarter, min. CHF 50 per year and max. CHF 200 per year excl. VAT.

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99% of the time I don’t need cash either.

But one use case came to mind - where could you get the coins for the carwash? :cowboy_hat_face:

The 0.025% is per quarter, but the latter CHF amounts you quote are per year.

So comparing to Postfinance (annual fee of CHF 90 fixed), below a depot value of CHF 90000 Sq is cheaper, and above Pf is cheaper.

But the Postfinance annual depot fee is a credit for trading, so I prefer Postfinance to Sq from a cost perspective.

Yes, fixed my post accordingly.

Trades of many ETFs and mutual funds can be much more expensive at PostFinance, though. At Swissquote there is a large number of funds with a flat commission of CHF 9. At PostFinance you quickly reach e.g. CHF 35 (ETF) or CHF 60 (mutual fund) for a 6k trade, as far as I can tell.

Also, security transfer costs CHF 100 per position at PostFinance, CHF 50 at Swissquote.

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You buy 90k of ETFs on SQ and then transfer them to PF?

  • Stamp Duty + Exchange fees
    I sold an ETF for around CHF 9’600 and paid CHF 27.25 fees in total (~0.28%).

Sure, you can’t avoid stamp duty with Swiss brokers. I don’t expect the CHF 90 credit to be usable for stamp duty, so that doesn’t affect the comparison. Exchange fees are also treated separate for both.

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Third caveat: No credit card - which you need for some rentals or offline use.

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