Two Banks for Two purposes and Maximum Security

Banks, Insurances & Third Pillar
1

Salut Mustachians :slight_smile:

I’m trying to design a very security-focused banking setup and would love some advice from people who’ve already gone deep into this or work in finance.

My idea is to separate my money into two completely different banks / cards, each with a very clear purpose:

:one: Savings / Vault Bank (maximum security)

This bank would be used only to store my savings.

What I’m looking for:
• No fees just for keeping money there
• Very strong security and reputation
• Good app/web interface for managing and transferring money
• I will not use this bank for payments or shopping
• The card (if any) would stay locked away / unused

Think of this as a “digital safe” rather than a daily bank account.

⸻

:two: Daily Spending / Travel Card (low fees, high flexibility)

This would be my everyday card:
• Online shopping
• Traveling abroad
• Subscriptions
• Daily expenses

Important points:
• Only a limited amount of money on it at any time (damage control if something goes wrong)
• Low or no fees for:
• Online payments
• Foreign currencies
• Traveling abroad
• Easy to freeze the card when i lose it
• Ideally works well as a prepaid or easily top-up card
• Reliable app with instant notifications

Do you guys have any suggestions?
I currently am with Ubs and Neon, but i feel the fees from both are not very good :confused: Ah btw i dont need any investing or etc since i do that on IBKR :slight_smile: Really just bank/card :slight_smile:

LOVE AND BLESSINGS

2

Isn’t key4 free without the CC?
Otherwise ZKB has free accounts too.

3

Im under 25 atm so i have a "Jugendsparkonto” which is free.

4

ZKB. Or another bank with a cantonal guarantee.

You’re not satisfied with Neon, and Yuh has high FX fees. So Revolut?

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5
  1. An offline (no e-banking) account in a cantonal bank with a state guarantee. Receiving all documents by paper mail. If you don’t need these money, just leave them. If you need some, go to the bank and ask to transfer some to your other account.
3 Likes
6

That may be a good option… thank you for sharing.

What setup do you use and why?

7

Hmmm revolut is also not really on my roster xD
But thank you for your thoughts, what setup do you use and why?

8

For Number 1, I’d recommend using a savings account. The interest rates change over time, so you will probably want to compare offers once a year or so and change if needed. You can compare offers here.

For Number 2, the private account from Bank WIR has low fees and good exchange rates. Radicant was a good option too, but they’re not around anymore.

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9

thank you

ive read some comments that the app of wir is very bad which scares me a bit xD

10

WIR currently has the “Savings Plan Plus” with 0.75% interest at least until September 2026. I think it is a good offer.

The app is not amazing but at least is not lagging like the Radicant one. Also, they are launching a major update so it should improve in the following weeks/months.

11

You need following

  • ZKB savings account
  • Alpian account or Revolut (would be useful for currency exchange)
  • Certo one credit card (all local payments and you pay once a month invoice from ZKB to cover the costs)
12

Perhaps it would be good if you could elaborate a little more on what you want to protect yourself against/safeguard yourself from. There are various scenarios with different solutions.

  • Protection against bankruptcy: No more than 100k with a bank.
  • Phishing: 2FA, password manager, etc.
  • Hacking: A separate device just for online banking

And it’s like in life: often it’s enough to be better than average. Everything else is a bonus.

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13

I really like that setup, i just looked into Alpian and they seem to be very competitive with conversion fees.

Thank you very much for your comment

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14

Hmmm i just dont feel very safe paying online and traveling with a card that in the background has a large sum of money. i know technically nothing can really happen but still :confused:

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15

Okay, in that case, it seems to me that you’re safe with any established bank + any neon bank for international payments.

16

You don’t have to use/enable your debit card.

Wouldn’t a single account + separate credit card be enough for your use case? (+Wise/revolut or similar for debit/FX)

17

A very sensible approach. The assumption that current systems are secure has (inaccurately) been the status quo with all generations of card technology. Fraudsters get smarter and security features become redundant.

Personally, I use Wise for card-based spending, and just transfer what i need into the Wise account. It also helps with budgeting.

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18

When I want to buy sth but feel the slightest sus feeling, I use Revolut:

  1. Create a new digital card
  2. Set max. monthly amount to 1.- more than what i want to buy
  3. Pay with this card online
  4. Block the card after payment went through, so no more deductions can be made later (blocking rather than delete because if you ever wanna get a reimbursement and the card is gone it becomes tricky; same issue with “disposable one-time cards”).

That being said, I also don’t have much money on the Revolut account anyway, but the digital card is an added safety feature.

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19

That’s not a problem:

The refund will be processed as normal, even if you used an inactive or disposable card

https://help.revolut.com/en-CH/help/card-payments-withdrawals/refunds/why-is-my-refund-pending/

I’m not sure anymore, but I think I’ve also received refunds for a normal deleted virtual card.

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20

Disposable cards failed a few times when merchants first checked whether the card is real or not (this failed with a disposable). So I’ll stick to my strategy for now. :smiley:

But yeah probably you would get the refund; unless they ask you for the card nr which you wouldnt be able to tell them anymore if it’s deleted. :laughing:

1 Like