Hello all,
I had some dollars transferred to my UBS account from a project I done but now I am kinda stuck with them. I want to transfer to IBKR and buy some shares but when I tried transferring 1000 USD the bank took 20 USD as fee (2%?). Because it’s foreign currency IBKR did not create a CH IBAN for me. Is there a way to avoid that fee (I imagine I will pay much more for 20k)? If I transfer USD to Revolut and then to IBKR would that cut down the fee?
Or, can one make a SEPA transfer with Dollars to Revolut?
Everyone is talking about converting CHF to whatever currency but what to do when you already have USD in your Swiss bank account?
Thank you for your answers.
I think that’s just the international bank transfer fee – the fee is the same if you transfer 21 USD or 20’000 USD.
They do this because they can …
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Likely a fixed charge that covers both the UBS end, and fees charged by the beneficiary institution.
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Normally if you have made USD transfer from UBS dollar account to IB, The IB account is in US.
I have seen 10 USD as fixed cost of such transfers.
Are you using right instructions in IBKR to transfer USD? They have different accounts to transfer different currencies
IBKR offers more transfer methods (some tagged as free even) but the only one I can use is called Bank Wire and I followed the instructions accordingly. I wonder if it’s possible to use Wise (cheaper fees?)
I see I never use Wise for these cases
I think I use wire transfer too.
Normally on UBS when making such transfer , you get advised on what’s the best option to select to get lowers fees and I always choose the fixed all in price of 10 USD
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I have a similar problem. I have USD on Yuh, and would like to send them to IB or Revolut as the conversion rate at Yuh is worse. But both IB and Revolut want me to transfer it to their abroad accounts.
For Euro it would be fine with Yuh to transfer to Revolut (free EUR transfer within SEPA), but not so for USD.
Is there a CH domestic settlement of USD wires (does SIX do it)? (I’d find that surprising, in any case it’s probably too niche to ever work with IB).
Anyway the USD wire transfer fee isn’t that high (10 to 20 USD for most banks?).
Actually only 4 CHF with Yuh (for USD within SEPA). Not a big deal, just annoying.
USD payments are routed through USD correspondent banks who need to ultimately have access to dollar clearing. To my knowledge UBS AG is the only Swiss bank that does.
That’s very cheap, surprising that it’s cheaper than pf 
(iirc it’s 2 CHF + wire fees which for me are 12 USD deducted from the amount transferred)
10 USD for UBS indeed to move to IB
I think SQ is higher to move to IB , maybe 20
Even Revolut won’t be free to send money to IB
The main issue is that funds need to go to US and hence extra charge.
Is that always the case? Since you don’t pay fees if you transfer USD within CH with Yuh.
How much are the fees for international money transfers on Yuh?
International transfers in EUR within the SEPA area are free. In other currencies, we charge 4 CHF. Bank transfers within Switzerland and Liechtenstein are free in the 13 currencies available in the app. But, there is a “but”… Yuh is not responsible for any fees charged by the receiving bank. A bit of research on your part could help you avoid any additional fees.
I believe the issue is that IB doesn’t have USD account in Switzerland . Their CHF account is in Zurich but their dollar account is in US.
At least this is what I know. Maybe different people have different situation because IBKR have many legal entities.
Transfer within Switzerland is cheaper. I think it’s 10 CHF from SQ and 5 CHF from UBS. Good to know it’s free from Yuh.
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Ah I see. I thought you mean any USD transfer has to go via US for some reason. But yeah, you can’t even send any money to IB in USD via Yuh, since they’re not part of the SEPA countries.
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Right. I didn’t mean everything needs to go to US. I just meant the payment to IBKR
But indeed dollar payments even within CH are not cleared the same way as CHF payments. So some banks charge a fee.
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If you and the recipient have accounts at the same bank there is no need. If your and the recipient’s bank have the same USD correspondent bank outside the US there is no need either. But in the majority of scenarios this is not the case and the funds are channeled through a US correspondent and even Fedwire or CHIPS. How each scenario is charged is another topic…