Thanks. I will compare the exchange rates with IBKR and Revolut. Revolut has some detractors but I’m not aware of anyone reporting they were ripped off on a large chunk of cash. But your notes of caution are points well taken.
Hmmm…just checked the Convert Currency option in IBKR which is showing I can buy 1.1002 USD for every CHF converted. Revolut is showing the same rate.
So new plan…transfer directly from BCGE to IBKR as CHF (my IBKR base currency is USD but I have some residual CHF there as I set it up with CHF then changed the base currency to USD).
Thanks for the quick steer!
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Not related to your question but I am interested to know why you chose to “…plan on investing 200,000 CHF…in the next couple of weeks…”. What will you buy what is your strategy? Are you very confident at this moment or are you just getting ready to buy-in once a correction comes (I hope I am not the only one expecting a major correction…)?
Thanks and cheers
I’m not timing the market. I’m a buy and hold investor. My wife and I have looked at our finances and agreed we can put this 200,000 to work for us. We have different risk tolerances and it’s been a matter of slowly getting her to accept that one can invest in equities and see a better return than most other uses. We had been oscillating around a real estate move but that seems off the cards for at least 5 years.
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IBKR doesn’t have exchange rates, you can directly buy on the actual currency market. You can offer any rate you want as long as you find a buyer or seller. Also it costs just 2$ no matter how much you exchange, that will surely beat any % fee that Revolut might have.
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Up to 100k, after that it’s 0.002% 
(edit: only up to 1B, it gets cheaper if you want to exchange more )
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If it‘s from a savings account it will be expensive zo withdraw, usuall three months notice period for amounts over a certain threshhold. Mine is 20k in a quarter, above I pay 2%
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200k to revolut? Never… if they freeze your account you are lost.
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As he said above: I’m not aware of anyone having been ripped off (in the end).
He might just have to jump more hoops than he could ever imagine.
I’ve heard stories where it took weeks tho. Probably not a good time if it’s a significant fraction of your wealth.
(In any case, as other said, there’s zero reasons to go through revolut here, IB will be much safer and cheaper)
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Not sure this was brought up already but it is not possible to make a Wire transfer in USD. They only accept ACH transfers which I believe are not available for European banks.
I suggest you try to create a deposit USD, and you see the transfer options available.
My advice is just to exchange with IBKR. They have market rate and you pay only 2 USD, fair enough for a 200k exchange IMO!
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I usually make a normal CHF bank transfer to my IBKR account. Because my salary is credited in the afternoon, it always gets executed on the next day.
I was wondering: Could I just use Revolut (linked to my real creditcard) for my monthly savingsrate? Anyone doing this?
It works. I transfered USD from a swiss bank account which holds USD
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How do you transfer? These are the bank details I get when I create transfer notification for a wire in USD…
Standard SWIFT transfer.
You have the account number and BIC.
fair enough i checked revolut and it asks me for ACH routing, I guess that is the same of ABA routing then.
In any case I would not use revolut for large amounts.
It‘s not uncommon for non-banks (such as Revolut) to be unable to offer cross-border USD transfers.
(ACH would be domestic, maybe through one of their payment/banking partners)
Most „real“ banks though should be able to offer and make USD SWIFT transfers.
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Have you specified your user account and name in the Reference?
Reference: U1234567/YOUR NAME