Options for cash Dollars and Euro

Banks, Insurances & Third Pillar
42

The longer you wait, the value will keep deteriorating.

I suggest the following

  • spend whatever you can during vacations, grocery shopping in European cities (at Swiss borders) etc
  • exchange with people who are going soon to Europe for vacation
  • some Swiss shops also take Euros but most likely they take it as 1-1 parity.
  • convert and deposit the rest

If you have a constant source of cash Euros then it might make sense to open an Euro account. If it’s a one off case, just convert and use the CHF.

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43

You can see it as an euro emergency fund and currency diversification.
I’ve always 20k of euros just in case :relieved:

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44

That would be a great exchange rate as 1 CHF has mainly been more than 1 EUR for the last 2 years or so.

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45

I think I saw it in sometime back . But it was when they were more or less at parity. I am sure they must have changed the rate based on latest situation

I would expect worse exchange rate in shops vs banks

46

I remember when the SNB suddenly changed the exchange rate to the EUR and the 2 ATMs closest to me were emptied of EURs by the afternoon as people figured out the rate had not yet been updated!

47

Does that make sense?
Let’s say the rate had been Fr 1.20 for e1, and the SNB suddenly removed this “limit” (i.e. caused the sudden change), and it dropped to Fr 0.9 for e1 instead. So I rush to the ATM in the hope of snagging some euros for the “old price” of Fr 1.20?

I believe the effect at the time was that the exchange rate had clearly gone too far / unsustainably low* (If I remember correctly, it briefly dropped to below Fr 0.7 for a USD for example) and that people were trying to get euros at the “great rate” for a presumed “short time only”.

*unsustainably low for the Swiss companies to survive.

48

so the right move for larger amounts would then be:

  1. Open Migrosbank USD account (5CHF monthly fee)
  2. Deposit USD cash into that account
  3. Transfer USD into IB to start getting the USD cash interest they offer?

Alternatively, when you change USD cash in Migros Change or Postfinance, can you directly give the cash and get them to transfer it to the IB account?

49

Before opening the USD account just get the bank to confirm depositing 50k or whatever USD in cash to your USD account doesn’t cost a fee. (It didn’t cost anything in my experience ,but that was a few years ago).

Yes, I forgot that the USD account costs $5 a month, but I suppose you’ll have the account only briefly, for your purpose.

Be aware a transfer from USD account at Migros Bank to USD account IB will cost about another $17 too. So do as few transfers as possible/all at once.

I don’t know and doubt you can “deposit” USD at Change or Die Post and have them directly transfer to your IB account. This seems to me like it would be somewhat critical from a regulatory POV.

50

Thanks!

I called them both, they no longer seem to accept USD cash. So if anyone else come across any other option please let me know :slight_smile:

51

Oops. This reminded me that I have cash USD sitting in a wallet that has been depreciating since 2019. I better find a way to get rid of it!

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52

Due to unknow monetary future of Latin-America, I will bring some bucks in dollar-cash to the family over Christmas. I got them in the past from PF where I’m a client. However, now I’m wondering if there is a better way to get around 5k$ in cash?

Does anybody have a good recent experience?