PostFinance E-trading Account USD/Euro deposit

Investing / Funding & Currency conversions
1

Hi fellow Mustachians,
I was a recent lurker who has decided to start contributing to this forum. My question is the following: it looks like the PostFinance E-trading account comes with three currency depots (chf/USD/euro) and explains why the yearly cost is 90chf (I.e. 30 chf per depot). Does anyone know if I can deposit USD directly into the account without converting through chf first? I sometimes receive money in form of Euros or USD from family members and was wondering if I can optimise my expenses here.

I’m interested to hear what you think. If no one knows, I will do some research and get back to you about it.

2

Hey Revoil,
i had the exact same issue.
I went and ask if I could transfer the USD to cash (this internal Message system works well!), and they said “no, you first have to transfer your E-Trading funds to you checkings account”

However, I added an EUR checkings account which doesnt cost extra. Then I could transfer the E-Trading Euros without conversion or fees. Should also work for USD!

3

Cool, does it cost extra to have these additional currency accounts? I only have the chf one at the moment.

4

I believe if you a “plus” account (total assets more than 25k) you can open checking account in other currencies with no additional cost.

5

So I am not completely sure about this but it seems like you might even be able to open an additional private account in whatever currency for free as long as each additional account has at least 7500 CHF worth of currency in it? I am not sure about this but that is how I interpret these pages:



I will try to reach out to PostFinance and see what they say.

6

I remember opening a USD account at PostFinance in addition to the CHF account and it never cost me anything. And at the time I didn’t have the Plus account. Never used the USD account because I later realized the conversions costs.

7

Are there any other good options for currency conversion? Do other banks offer better rates? Or is this another reason everyone prefers IB?

8

In my experience, the options for currency conversion in increasing order of cost are:

  • trade directly with someone you trust who has the opposite need
  • IB
  • CurrencyFair, Transferwise or other similar service
  • regular banks
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