Congratulations !
It is good to secure some money.
Converting euro in chf as this rate is painful to me as I new the rate of 1,65 chf for 1 euro 11 years ago.
As an alternative, you could DCA on VERX the Euro Stoxx 600 version of vanguard quoting in euro and distributing euro dividend.
You could then convert your chf to usd and invest into VTI to be exposed to the US.
If you don’t intend on leaving Switzerland in the next few years, I would convert it to the local currency, at least the part you don’t want to invest right now. Otherwise you’re speculating on currency, which is also fine if you have a specific reason to do so, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Different question: if you had 700k CHF, what would you do with it? If the answer is not “convert some of it to EUR”, I think you know what the rational thing to do is.
If you want a guarantee, I’m fairly sure you’ll need either to have negative interests (and get short term bonds), or split it into multiple banks.
Very few banks will have unlimited guarantee (if you truly want 0 risk).
Yes.
Why? We are more than 10% below all times high. And probably coming out of this year’s dip. Rates are high, future earnings are valued low. What else do you want?
Invest or change to CHF/invest in save CHF denominated assets. Keeping EUR cash is your worst option.
Btw in 2007 I was selling EUR for 1 EUR = 1.6 CHF I think 
Seems like you ruled out investing it immediately in ETFs so you are not requesting advice on this point. However a couple of points I would consider in your shoes:
-Your 700k was 100% invested in a startup. If you were to invest it an ETF like VT you are staying invested and diversifying
-If you keep this amount in cash you are losing 3% p.a. in real terms/ 21k chf due to the combination of inflation and zero interest. Many banks will charge you fees. It is really a terrible time to be a saver and holder of cash
The right approach depends on your long term investment goals
If you do decide to keep cash: the Euro has declined vs CHF by ~2% pa since inception due to the structural differences between the economies and the futures market usually has that priced in to continue
[edit: having issues posting this due thread being split mid post]
I’d split it into 7x100k and deposit it at 7 banks. Most banks don’t charge negative interest rates for a 100k balance. Also, deposits are insured for up to 100k (or there is a higher state guarantee). What comes to my mind are free “EUR Sparkonto” products, offered for example with good conditions from Aarguauische Kantonalbak, Basler Kantonalbank and Cler (notes: these are free, but outbound transfers from these accounts are not; cantonal banks will open an account via paper mail). I think Migrosbank offers a free EUR account as well. EUR savings accounts in EU countries pay even positive interest (I have one paying 0.5%) and have guarantees for up to 100k as well.
Thank you all for your useful insights. I’ll follow some of the advice and convert most of the EUR into CHF then split it up into different 100k accounts, and I’ll gradually invest a good part of the money in ETFs. The main reason for not going all in in stocks at once is that I’m quite negative on the current state of the global economy, even if I know that on the long run it’s probably irrelevant and it will be next to impossible to enter the market at the lowest. I’m still quite bad at managing human emotions…
On another note, what’s the best way to convert EUR to CHF? In the past I already used B-sharpe and Wise and they worked well, but if I understand correctly IB has the best exchange rates. As far as you know can I open an account with IB just to convert EUR into CHF or are there limitations in place?
Thanks!
It probably works, but they don’t like it (they’ve been telling people who were using IB purely for converting cash to stop). Probably nothing will happen if you do it once, and don’t care about your long term relationship with them.
(If you use them as your primary brokers, that’s probably good enough for them if you also convert once in a while)
Don’t think they care much, but if you want to invest in US ETFs, then invest a small (10k ?) amount already now. There will be nothing suspicious in your activity.
Or CHSPI or any other ETF or anything. I was trying to use different brokers, but finally concentrated all stock funds at IB. The main goal was to increase my margin.
I think you qualify for special treatment because of the big amount, see for example:
So you will probably get better conditions, but on the other hand it’s much harder to compare the different providers.
Still I think IB is cheaper and more reliable for an exchange of such amount of cash.
EURCHF has fallen below the previous historical minimum from January 2015, buy the way.
Yeah but what to do with all those euros ?
Do you stack them for a rental property down payment ?
to many people thinking EUR will recover, the only people longing EUR is retail and this is why it will fall further. Energy prices just did a x7 in Germany, the DAX is in freefall, i don’t see a way where the EUR will recover quickly.
Actually I was wrong (data source problem). In January 2015 EURCHF has dived to 0.862 
Could you link your source, please? This doesn’t match my memory (though that doesn’t matter much), or some top results from Google.
The first few results for a google search “eur chf january 2015” show exactly that, it was on the 15.01.2015 when Switzerland abolished the 1.2 peg to the EUR.
TradingView, EURCHF feeds from FXCM (wrong, well, rather it probably wasn’t traded at this price there) and from forex.com (minimum 0.86288).
Also cash.ch mentioned 86 Rappen / USD in 2015, that’s when I started to doubt.