Hi all, I am new to the forum and glad I found such useful information here!
I will move to Zug canton in mid-April and will start working at the end of the month.
The first thing I will do is of course the registration to the canton, I am EU citizen, already have an address in the canton and a permanent work contract.
I am in the phase of checking primary things as bank account and mobile phone, in particular it seems that banks asking for B permit before opening the account and my doubt is: since I read it may take months to receive the B permit, how can I receive my salary from the employer in the meantime? Is there any bank that allows to open an account without B permit (I am most looking at neobanks).
The same problem applies also to mobile providers (I am looking at Go-Mo) or they just care about the residence address?
For the bank, they can open the account with just your certificate of residence from the commune (which states what permit is being issued for you). They might ask you to bring them your permit once you have it, but you don't need to wait until you have it to open the account.
For the phone, in the worst case you can always start by getting a prepaid SIM from Coop Mobile or similar. You'll be able to transfer your number when you change providers down the line.
My experience was that you gave the documents (permanent contract and other relevant stuff) to the bank staff, then they know you will get a B Permit eventually. They will open an account for you immediately, prior to the issuance of the actual permit card.
Thank you! The temporary documents for the permit are working also if I want to open a online bank (neon or yuh) based on your experience?
P.s: do you suggest to use an online bank as main account in Switzerland? I won't need a physical contact, my only concern is about security but I read that they are covered up to 100k CHF as normal banks so it shouldn't be a problem
For Yuh, you can open an account with your passport only if you come from the countries bordering switzerland and you'll need to do a transfer from an account in your name domiciliated in one of those countries (FR DE IT AT)
Neon will ask you for your physical Bpermit in order to open an account with them.
About traditional banks as stated beforeyou can open an account just with your registration confirmation
All banks are online banks these days. I've been to UBS 3 times since 2012 and last one of them on 2013: 1) to open the account, 2) cash first salary in the bank because I was still waiting for the card, 3) bring residence permit when I finally got it.
But, UBS ate CS...maybe it's a good idea to visit the cantonal bank or Die Post. Things that work don't need innovation at all.
Mind you, UBS services suck. I have been using UBS for more than 3 years. Fees for stock trade are crazily high; debit card contactless function lost quickly; message to client advisor takes ages to get a reply.
For other banks, I have no experience and hence i cannot comment.
UBS should be the safest one being a huge giant as it is. If it fails, I guess that will be the last of our problem, isn't it?
What about PostFinance? Fees are too high? I'll mostly use the account for receiveing salary and paying expenses, not many things initially as I will keep also my EU account.
Do you think that using Neon or Yuh as main account is riskier than using a cantonal bank/UBS? Theoretically they should have the same backing capped to 100k CHF..
As previous members said, you will get something called [meldebestätigung] right after you register. This you need to do before starting work (takes about 10 minutes and you pay around 110 CHF). With the paper you will receive you can :
Create a bank account
Create a mobile / home subscription
I created an UBS account after one week, once I landed here.
Phone --> first day I bought a Swisscom prepaid SIM (20 CHF / 1 CHF per day for internet usage) --> because I landed here on a Saturday and did not have the paper --> Swisscom wanted some guarantees from me so they would start creating a mobile subscription. I went to Salt , they asked for 200 CHF.
I waited 2 days , got my paper , went to Salt again, they did not require the 200 guarantee anymore and got my subscription.
Thank you. Still need to figure out what bank I'll choose but for mobile I'll take Go-Mo which seems the best by far in term of offer. No idea how long it'll take to receive the SIM since it's fully online (and only in German)
I do recommend to check out Postfinance for a bank account, as they are one of the few banks that are actually obliged (AFAIK) to offer you a bank account if you are resident in Switzerland. Technically other banks (UBS et al) can refuse to open you an account without any reason. Also, if you do not have a permit yet, how can you tell for sure that it is going to be a B permit?
I have been using Postfinance for the past few months and I'm happy, their mobile app is OK, I don't really have any issues with them.
For mobile I would recommend DigitalRepublic which are prepaid, but are concealing themselves as if they were a subscription (you can set your monthly "subscription" to renew automatically). Very flexible, and data is also unlimited - although for 10 CHF you do not get free calls, so Go-Mo seems to be a better deal in this regard! They also don't care about your permit, they just need a Meldebestätigung.
Yes, I don't know for sure if I'll get a B permit, but should be the case I guess (EU national with permanent contract). What are the costs of PostFinance for simply use it for salary and expenses (including wire transfers to EUR and maybe 1 cash withdraw every now and then)?