I can only pay into the mortgage account to service my loan until the date I signed with them. After that date they will not give me a new loan, I either need to find a new bank or pay it fully.
All the other accounts I have will be closed, investment fund will be closed.
I guess this is the shitter, right? Other membersâ posts suggest the rate you have now is very good, so you wonât find a bank to pick the mortgage up at that rate?
I donât need to find another bank now for the loan, there are 7 years left on the loan, after which I will need to find a new bank for the going rate at that time, which is the same as it would have been with UBS.
I guess that similar rate was achievable at other banks at that time too. So I have a feeling that the only bad thing in this context is that @rew342343 already knows that he will have to change the bank for the mortgage when the time comes. Whatâs concerning though is⊠this letter in itself, this decision, without providing any context etc. Crazy!
Speculating, but based on hearing something similar from someone else, maybe they are not happy with having to do compliance checks for larger amounts without that money being invested at UBS.
At UBS? They never offered >10 years mortgages.
I moved like 200k this year and more than that in single transactions to/from IBKR in previous years, so it doesnât seem to be universally big transactions.
No 2nd citizenship, US Green Card etc? It is normally US ties which cause problems.
Itâs no use. There was a similar case last year. The Ombudsmanâs statement was:
GrundsĂ€tzlich könne eine Bank eine Kundenbeziehung jederzeit beenden. «Bankbeziehungen unterliegen schwerpunktmĂ€ssig dem Auftragsrecht», erklĂ€rt der Ombudsmann. Er verweist auf Artikel 404 im Obligationenrecht, wonach sowohl die Auftraggeberin als auch der Auftragnehmer jederzeit kĂŒndigen können. Eine BegrĂŒndung sei nicht nötig. Das Bundesgericht stĂŒtze dies durch mehrere Urteile
In principle, a bank may terminate a customer relationship at any time. âBanking relationships are primarily governed by mandate law,â explains the ombudsman. He refers to Article 404 of the Swiss Code of Obligations, according to which both the principal and the agent may terminate the agreement at any time. No justification is required. The Federal Supreme Court has upheld this in several rulings.
The only bank that cannot simply close an account is Postfinance (example).
Do you have any evidence for this claim?
I think you should try to figure out the reason. Because UBS is a big serious bank. If they decide to close your accounts for some reason, then other banks will also have similar issues if the reason is serious enough.
You can still choose to find another bank. But I think you should definitely find out the reason.
Anecdotally, Iâve heard from many Swiss-based colleagues with a US link (citizenship, greencard, etc.) that they had problems.
For the original poster, unless there is an error or another critical issue (odd payments, etc.), it seems like it can only be that the bank simply views him as a very low-value customer for them. That leaves me a bit puzzled as UBSâs retail banking side is not purely HNWI focused (in Switzeralnd at least).
Youâre right, I also heard such anecdotes. However, the reason you hear about them is that in most cases banks are transparent about the issue being in connection with the US. Even account closures were transparently communicated.
Would be interesting to find out if there were any previous cases of account closures without any reasons that turned out to be due to the US. Otherwise it remains speculation.
We have zero connections to US, both me and my wife come from EU countries but weâve been living more in Switzerland compared to the countries we were born.
Just last week we came from Disneyland in Florida, my ESTA was approved immidiatelly on the webpage and I was waved through, so for sure I donât appear to any terrorist or similar list for the bank to confuse me with.
We never receive payments from abroad and the only payments we do abroad are done with Wise card. We donât even use the credit cards that come with our account, we only use the debit ones.
At the time we got our mortgage, we already had one running and it was our third one with UBS. I donât know if they were offered publically, but we were offered at a premium 12 and 15 years mortgages at the time, each was 0.25% more expensive than the previous one, if memory serves me. I think the 15 years one was below 1%, but at the time the variable was going negative.
I will call on Monday but from the lack of details mentioned in the letter I donât think they will tell me anything more.
Iâve heard different - that banks are purposefully vague to avoid risk of being pinned downed legally. Then again, my experience is just anecdotally.
Iâve run into issues myself tied to working for a US company (my link to US was scrutinized heavily and I frequently needed to recertify I had no formal personal link to US) and payments to certain countries.
Thatâs unfortunate and not at all consumer friendly.
When working for a mortgage broker and when negotiating with UBS, durations up to 15y were definitely possible (we fixed 13y, since I had to match the retirement age) - there were some special requirements and it had to be approved.
Where I am working now, up to 15y mortgage durations are possible - but for the public 10y are communicated as maximum.
Have you been in contact with someone else at the bank and the discussion went south?
Have you made any donation to charity/person that could be flagged?
What currency were your 100K transfer to IBKR? (which payment network was used?)
How much of your net worth with them was that?
Have you deposited / withdrawn considerable amount of cash?
I donât know wise. do you pay wise credit card or wise transfer amounts from UBS?
Could they flag the over optimisation thing: use of 3rd party broker, credit card, forexâŠwhile having nothing with them and low cash balance⊠which really does not look like it (mortgage, fund)âŠ.
Thanks for sharing, good to know.
Nobody contacted me prior this letter.
Apart from the mortage, I had a fund and 3rd pillar invested with them, around 20% of the cash I had among my UBS accounts.
No donation to a charity or a person. If there was I donât think it would have been more than 20 CHF.
We have not made any payments abroad.
The IBKR was CHF transfer, directly to IBKR. That transfer was 30% of the total net worth at the time.
Not deposited or withdrawn any cash.
Wise is like Revolut or the similar fintech, I transfer money to Wise and they credit my account, which I exchange or spend with their debit card abroad
Balance among the UBS accounts was around 400k which now will go to 2 cantonal bank accounts. So I wouldnât say the balance was low. What is baffling is that I have 2M loan which now will have 0 collateral on the account.
Wow, I imagine that this causes stress.
Did you have any issues opening new accounts? Are there questions from new banks like âdid any other swiss bank kick you outâ like we know it from insurances?
If not, I would look at it like a business partnership - objectiv. They kicked you out, canceled your long term arangement. Even when you did use other brockers, wise etc - it is not forbidden. It might be a bad thing for UBS. But from a businesspartner I like to have a headsup when the partnership has a tendency to no make financially sense to them anymore.
I would be happy to take my business elsewhere.