Postfinance increases fees for Giro

Banks, Insurances & Third Pillar
122

SEPA transactions are free, but EUR account is not free: CHF 3.50 for every page of the account statement.

See https://www.bcv.ch/content/download/11051/134625/version/29/file/42-558e-Brochure_Tarifs_10-18.pdf page 11

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123

aaaand BCV off the list.

Maybe only for paper statements though.

Thanks for the info.

124

Seems like it (and I think most banks charge for those).

125

[quote=“nabalzbhf, post:124, topic:1334”]
Seems like it (and I think most banks charge for those)[/quote]
Yeah, that’s what I thought at first but no. If you want paper then there’s an .85 postage fee on top of that. It’s their way of charging for this account.

You can see that for the other accounts, the ones included in the CHF package, there are free statements if online and they explicitly say “included via BCVnet”. I already asked about this at a branch and they confirmed my interpretation. Too bad. And there might also be an additional 0.50 per line, but I’m unsure about that.

Also, just in case cash is important for you, there is no free way to deposit/withdraw EUR from this account. At the counter they will charge you an agio/disagio of 1%, min CHF 20. From personal experience, at the ATM it’s only possible to withdraw CHF from the EUR account for a fee (!!). Or get EUR Maestro for a fee. Same with deposits, you can only deposit CHF to the EUR account with the provided Maestro card. No EUR-EUR ATM possible.

PostFinance beats this. Or used to.

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126

I’d personally won’t go with them also because of the Machiavellian way of taking your money. Just ask freaking 10francs/month and don’t put many tiny fees here and there.

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127

Totally agree. It’s not transparent. But then again, their package is advertised as CHF. I guess EUR is exotic.

But still, with a similar setup PostFinance is more expensive with their 5 CHF monthly fee now. Hence my “used to”. Too bad for them.

This new 5 CHF / month is a deal breaker for all moustachians alike. Because who would hold 25k in a PF Fund even if it’s for pillar 3a?

If you need a EUR account but don’t need to handle EUR cash and don’t have an account with a European bank, then solutions like Revolut or DKB (with some moving money around involved) are the best I know of.

128

Dear PF experts,

I have PF account and I would like to transfer significant amount of CHF from Switzerland to Poland (account in CHF). I did a dry run and transferred 200 CHF with GIRO transfer using “share costs” option. It supposed to be free, however intermediaries charged 8 CHF on the way and I received only 192 CHF. Which is fine, that’s the way “share costs” work. However, I called everywhere and nobody is really able to tell what the maximum fee could be. If the charge percentage is the same (4%) - bigger transfer is not an option.

However, there is another GIRO option “our costs”. PF charges 20 CHF for that transfer but there SHOULD be no other fees for intermediaries. I emphasize SHOULD, because nobody from PF was able to assure me for 100% that there will be no other charges.

Has anyone of you tried to transfer bigger amount from PF abroad? Can I be sure that 20 CHF is all that they’ll charge? MANY thanks for advice, I’m sure you have some experience, who keeps money in PF anyway, right? :wink:

129

I’d transfer it from PF to IB, convert it and send it back to Poland. Should be much cheaper than direct transfer.

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130

I did transfer EUR from PF to Revolut for free when there were only a GB account using SEPA. Maybe you can trasnfer your CHF to IB, exchange them in EUR, transfer back to PF (on EUR account) and SEPA them to Poland (on a EUR account).

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132

Why convert it? He/she wants to transfer CHF to a Polish CHF account.

Without knowing the Polish bank‘s fee schedule, a straight SWIFT transfer will most probably be least expensive for „significant amounts“ (that would warrant a trial run), if you‘d like to keep the money in the same currency.

It‘s not really free though when coming from a CHF account. While the SEPA transfer (in Euros) might technically incur no (or low) fees, PostFinance will have a considerable margin on the currency conversion prior to sending the Euros out.

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133

I repeat in a better form:

  1. SEPA transfer from PF are free.
  2. SEPA transfer are EUR only.
  3. You need a PF EUR account.
  4. You can convert CHF to EUR on IB to save some money.

So, if he want to transfer money to Poland, that’s the cheapest way IMHO. If he want to have them in a CHF Polish account, then he either convert them back or better check if its Polish bank has fees for receiving/sending money from any account. I suppose the only free transfers in the polish bank are between eur account, maybe even with IB. If it’s true, just use IB as intermediate.

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134

Then I’d do the same thing but without conversion. Anyway, I don’t see the point of keeping CHFs in Poland unless someone has a mortgage to pay off in CHFs.

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135

The cheapest way is Swisscard Cashback Visa (0.5% Cashback) -> Revolut -> Swift to Polish Bank Account

Let’s say you do this with 8k -> you get 8k on your Revolut account -> Swift to your Polish Bank Account will probably cost you something, but no more than CHF 20 in worst case. But you also get CHF 40 cashback on from Swisscard. So you actually made money with this transaction.

But I wouldn’t to this in circles, as manufactured spending will get card top ups blocked on Revolut. But if you only do this from time to time when you need it. Should be fine.

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and that would be the moment the Polish bank will have a margin rate on the currency conversion - which might very well be more expensive than a straight transfer from Switzerland. For instance, even a 0.5% markup on a “significant sum” of CHF 20’000 would be 100 CHF - that might be more than a straight SWIFT transfer from Switzerland.

I think, one really does need to look beyond transfer fees, and take exchange rates into account. The more “significant” the amount of money, the more welcome are fixed fees - and the worse any costs that are calculated (or hidden) as a percentage of the amount, like currency conversion.

That’s good advice, as some banks charge commissions based on the amount you send. In this case, however, I suspect they don’t, as I understand Frugo received an exact 192 CHF.

That might be slightly less. Or more. PostFinance charges 2 CHF for Giro International. Interactive Brokers 11 CHF per CHF withdrawal. Now the first withdrawal each month should be free - in the end it would be coming down to intermediaries’ charges, which are somewhat unknown in the equation.

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137

Transfer from PF to IB is free. I’m not sure about the transfer from IB to Polish account but this shouldn’t be expensive (would be probably cheaper in case of PLN). I can actually test this as I have both CHF and PLN accounts in Poland.

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138

Back to the question:
If it’s supposed to be a one-time transfer, I would


  1. ask myself whether I really want to keep the money in CHF
  2. 
with a foreign bank (I have done so in the past), also consulting fees for foreign-currency incoming transfers
  3. then make a straight SWIFT transfer with shared costs.

I believe the potential for further optimisation is quite limited.

I would consider this more a “manufactured spending” hack.
You could easily do the same transferring back CHF to a Swiss account. And once they stop turning a blind eye to it, they will tell you that such transfers to own accounts are “unwelcome”. Furthermore, there is a risk that Swisscard will take action at some point, too.

More or less similar:

Seems to be SWIFT as well, not a domestic PLN transfer.

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139

Thanks for answers and insight.

First of all, I don’t have an IB account, sooner or later I’ll sign up for it, however the plan is to transfer money to Poland to buy a property first.

I want to do it without FX conversion, because once CHF’s are in Polish bank account, I could use very favorable FX rate on walutomat.pl to exchange it to PLN (they always have the best rates, tested with EUR). I believe also conversion from CHF—>EUR—>PLN is not favorable as each conversion triggers some loss as a result. (I will get less PLN for sure)
Polish bank doesn’t charge anything for incoming transfers, but they also DON’T KNOW what will happen on the way between PF and their bank.

I could easily accept 20-30 CHF fee for GIRO with ‘our costs’ since the amount will be around 30k CHF. I am just afraid of intermediaries’ fees on the way. I am worried it could be % based.

140

They charge 0.2% commission. That’s going to be worse than IB (market rate, $2 commission).

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141

Probably yes, but I’m trying to remain a minimalist when it comes to a number of various accounts.
It seems I won’t survive here without IBRK, will I ? :smile:

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142

You will most certainly not get a better exchange rate on Walutomat comparing to IB, I just checked that.

You can exchange CHF/PLN at IB with near interbank rates and then transfer out PLN for free. Why do you think you need CHF->EUR->PLN conversion?

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