I actually have TransferWise but didn’t use it for a while. I see that they have quite a list of local IBAN accounts. Hungarian Forint, Romanian Leu, Swiss Franc. Sadly, no PLN 
Yes, this is really useful for receiving money from people. They are adding bank details for new currencies quite often. I imagine that behind-the-scenes this is quite complicated for them to set up.
Personally I have AUD, CAD, EUR, and USD bank details… free and created in a click. I don’t know how much it would cost (or if it would even be possible) to open and maintain accounts with banks in all of those jurisdictions.
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Car rentals for one will not work with a prepaid credit card (most of the time).
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Hi,
I did an experiment with Neon, Revolut (no premium) and TransferWise consisting in making 3 payments at the same store at the same moment with the three cards. Here are my results. Unfortunately for TransferWise I forgot that I had some balance in EUR so I couldn’t verify the rate.
| Card and rate | Date | EUR | CHF | rate | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revolut weekend | 02.01.2021 | 42.84 | 46.78 | 1.091970121 | |
| Neon | 02.01.2021 | 54.87 | 59.55 | 1.08529251 | Neon Wins |
| Revolut weekday | 15.07.2021 | 2.5 | 2.71 | 1.084 | |
| Neon | 15.07.2021 | 2.5 | 2.71 | 1.084 | Tie |
| Revolut weekday | 16.07.2021 | 16.38 | 17.8 | 1.086691087 | |
| Neon | 16.07.2021 | 33.04 | 35.85 | 1.085048426 | Neon Wins |
So I guess Neon is the best deal all-round?
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Maybe it’s the amount? I am thinking of getting a Neon card as well, but still unsure.
I like that Revolut can be deactivated temporarily.
I don’t think the amount should matter.
The only disadvantage for Neon is that you cannot make FX in advance so if one day you like the rate and would like to exchange some you cannot lock it, you are dependant on the rate on transaction date. Other than date I think I’m leaving my Revolut card at home when travelling, at least in the Eurozone.
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Neon cards can be locked and unlocked again in the app as well. Just had to do that a couple of days ago when I lost my card.
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It seems that Handelszeitung made a quite strange comparison for online-payments, or Yuh (from where I have the data) just took only half of the data to hide the real costs: https://library.yuh.com/shared-images/currency-exchange-comparison-chart-de.
According to this chart Yuh has the best exchange-rates (even in the minus area…!). Unfortunately, this data is absolutely bs and not helpful since at the end of the day it’s the exchange rate AND the fee for the transaction in the foreign currency that makes the whole cost. I’m pretty sure that Wise and Revolut are still the number one when it comes to the lowest overall-cost.
Maybe somebody has the Handelszeitung-article at hand? The article is only accessible for subscribers, I guess (Online-Bank Yuh hat bereits mehr als 20'000 Kunden - die Hälfte kam von Postfinance und Swissquote | HZ)
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For Yuh it will depend on how they use it. For example, if you are travelling for 2 weeks and you need to comvert CHF 2’000.- in euros on your Yuh account, you can exchange your CHF in EUR at the FX rate of the day before your traveled. For CHF 2’000.-, it will cost CHF 19.- (2000x0.95%).
Then you don’t need to exchange your CHF and you can use your euro balance on the app. I don’t know if it will be cheaper than using your Neon card every day during 2 weeks.
Overall, I think that if you sent your CHF to IB, convert it, and get back to your Yuh account, it will be cheaper 
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Yuh has higher exchange fees than Revolut and Neon on major currencies.
It’s impossible to predict the future exchange rate, I wouldn’t “play” with that
Thanks 
As already mentioned earlier. A comparison between Neon and Revolut ist very difficult because:
Revolut exchange-rate is exactly the rate that is valid at the time of the transaction whereas Neon exchange-rate is the Mastercard rate which is only determined the day after by Mastercard. So, whatever you do shop on a certain date with Neon, it will always have the same exchange rate, whether you buy it in the morning or in the evening. This in contrast to Revolut (and Wise). Unfortunately, I have nowhere found an explanation how Mastercard determines the applied exchange-rate. But I made some tests in the past and I have the strong impression that - especially during days with high exchange-rate fluctuations - Mastercard applied the most unfavourable exchange rate. Therefore, I would say: if you use Revolut/Wise the chances are higher that you get a better exchange-rate during the day than with Mastercard (which maybe uses the worst exchange rate during a 24 hour period or so). This is just my experience, but it does not have to be true!
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PS: Also it is not quite clear in which timezone Mastercard applies this 24 hours rule (that I guess they do) and if this timezone is dependent on the currency-pair etc. Overall: Quite intransparent in comparison to Revolut and Wise!
Indeed, I will not “play” it too, I was wondering if they take this option on their experience. Because I’m really sceptical about their conclusions.
In my opinion, unless you do not need to pay a big amount in foreign currencies the different between revolut and Neon are minimal.
So you need to look for simplification or other capabilities as the cost are really similar.
In my case I’ve chosen Neon, as I used as my primary bank. It doesn’t have sense for me to have a ZAK or another bank and then revolut.
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I agree. Moving from one of them to the other due to FX fees on card payments is over-optimisation. Even for ATM fees abroad the difference on the free plans isn’t huge (Revolut: 2% above 200£, compared to Neon’s 1.5%).
- Revolut offers more cards, better real-time notifications, holding and exchanging foreign currency and cheaper foreign bank transfers (compared to Wise+Neon’s convenience fee) but you cannot directly receive your Swiss salary into the account.
- Neon is a proper Swiss bank account that you can use to receive salary, though they do offer less cards and are less convenient on international transfers and foreign currency.
This is how I would base my decision for the average user (also, Revolut can be finicky once you become entangled in their compliance web, and their customer support can be abysmal). Personally, if I can do with one physical card (plus the virtual ones on a smartphone), I’d prefer Neon nowadays.
The convenience of
- being able to use it as a salary-receiving account
- not having to worry about the weekend surcharge
- having greater peace of mind about customer service (at least from my very limited interactions)
beats any marginal cost savings Revolut may provide for card payments.
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What you described. I’ve read enough stories on another forum.
Your usual holiday expenses paid by card? Surely no problem.
Converting (larger higher five-digit or six-digit) amounts to send to a broker?
At least be prepared to prove source of funds?
That property sale or inheritance 8 years ago?
Surely you’re able to provide a trail of documentation for your source of funds, are you?
Reviving this thread…
Has anybody done a thorough comparison of the Neon and Wise cards?
If I understand it correctly, the only difference lies in the exchange rate that you get. Neon gives you the Mastercard rate and Wise gives you their usual rate plus their conversion fees?
That has a pretty detailed look at the exchange rates of mastercard vs visa vs interbank
My personal experience is that mastercard rate is very close to interbank rate, I had days where it was slightly worse than the official rates for that day, some where it was the same and some where it was even better. But all in all it was very similar and the simplicity of this vs using transferwise makes me use the Neon card whenever I can.
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Since I have both a Neon card and a Wise card (plus a few other ones, including Revolut), I often tend to use Neon for payments in Switzerland and Wise for payments in other currencies. Actually, if it would just be for card payments, I might only use Wise. But Neon offers some of the advantages of a Swiss bank account, beside the card.
I made some comparative testing a few months ago (but unfortunately didn’t keep the results, thus I cannot share them).
The advantage of having a Wise account is that I can also receive incoming payments directly in EUR, USD, or some other currencies, instead of having to go through CHF.
Regarding the Neon rates, they explain that clearly on that page (toward the bottom of the page, with a small visual showing how ti works):
Actual mid-market rate. No exchange rate spread. Just a convenience fee of 0.4% (yes, that one goes to us) and a transaction fee, calculated by Wise.
I’ll use crypto.com for all my future purchases in any currency as outlined in the thread. 10k EUR at interbanking rate is enough for most months.
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