Using IB for CHF to EUR transfer

Investing / Funding & Currency conversions
1

Hi
I read about CHF to USD conversion on IB in order to buy US ETFs and the very little fee attached to this.

I got the idea of using IB forex market in order to convert CHF to EUR and then withdraw it (I need some EUR for buying some food and stuff on France)
On paper it seems a good alternative to b-sharpe, transferwise or telexoo that I currently use causes it seems way cheaper (less fee and true exchange rate).

Is it worth it? As nobody mention it, I guess there is a BUT (some kind of hidden fee?)

2

The BUT is that you only have one free withdrawal per month at IB. Other than that it clearly is the cheapest solution by far.

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3

For small amounts you can also consider something like revolut, if you convert during trading hours afaik there are no fees and only a tiny spread.

(and you can convert in advance and keep a balance in EUR)

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4

For small expenses I also use Revolut (I buy my groceries in France too). Now that they have a CH IBAN is perfect and free conversion up to 5000-5500 € per month (I hope you need less per month in groceries :smiley: )
IB can be an alternative for bigger amounts, and looking in their website it looks that the first withdrawal is free, the successive is 1 € each (SEPA)…so no big deal I think

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5

The other gotcha of using IB for currency exchange is that funding, exchanging and withdrawing can take up to three weeks or more to complete depending on your circumstances (up to 44 business days for some American transfer methods). Compared to things like CurrencyFair that typically do it within a couple of business days, that’s not trivial.

This can be worked around but you need to understand what you are getting into.

See IB Funding Reference page: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=1544

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6

Funding by pigeon? How’s that? :slight_smile:
It takes me usually less than a week, since I do everything in the evening. 2 days for the funding, 3 days wait for the withdrawal, 1 day before I see them on my PF account.

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7

Would this also be recommended the other way around? I know someone that owns a Euro bank account in Switzerland (selling property abroad). The Conversion rate at the bank is 2% afaik, could this be bypassed when transferring EUR to a EUR revolut IBAN and then convert it to CHF to be spent in Switzerland? Are there other suggestions?

8

Why not, if you’re using IB anyway? Small caveat, IB might transfer CHF as a SWIFT transfer, which incur fees at intermediate and/or receiving bank.

Be aware that Revolut charges non-premium customers for currency exchange above 5000€/£/$ (?) a month.