my bank in the Netherlands will apply , starting from July, negative interests ( -0.5%) to my primary bank account so I am considering to move the money(liquidity) somewhere else.
I posted this message to get some Ideas about what I can do.
The options I have in mind are:
1 - move them to Transferwise ( I still have to verify whether is possible since the amount of money is above 100K)
2 - open a Euro deposit here in CH ( I don't like it very much since the fees could become very high if I move back to Europe)
3 - open some kind of deposit account with a european(?) brokerage agent so I could even decide to invest in some kind of very low risk fund/set of funds. I thought about Interactive Brokers but I heard it is complicated so perhaps other companies in Europe would be preferred (Bink for example?).
4 - find a good consultant and ask him what to do. At the moment I have no contacts.
Notes:
- I am European citizien and I might move back in the EU since I will be unmployed soon.
- the money currency is Euro,
- I don't care if the new account doesn't have (positive) interest rate applied.
- considering that we are talking about 95% of my capital, I would need to keep the risks low.
I don't see any issues with a 100k transactions, sometimes you will be asked a few questions, I have found 70-80k generally go through unless sending to Jersey which is considered higher risk.
Open an account in Germany, check if this is possible. Or in Belgium depending where you are closer. I know for example you can open an EUR account at HSBC in France if you live in the EU (but outside of France). They charge fee for the ATM card but nothing else.
Interactive brokers is an option. They apply negative interest rate only if EUR cash is > 100,000. However, if they go bankrupt it will be difficult to get back the cash (hopefully this won't happen). If you are looking to buy European stocks then this option could work well.
I wouldn't move EUR cash to CH as banking in CH usually comes with lots of fees.
It is a difficult time now as EUR has negative interest rate from the ECB and more banks will start charging fees as time passes.
EUR in ch wil get higher fees as soon as you move abroad, iirc 25 chf per month at postfinance. But until you are here it's a good option.
Brokers are not banks, nor is wise afaik, so you don't even have the 100k protection (or in general, the same level of likeliness that the state will try to save the institution).
If I'm not mistaken, 100k for transferwise (wise now) is about the guarantee amount, not 'what you're allowed to have/transfer'.
I don't like negative rates, I mean, one thing is fixed bank fee, but percentage, I just don't like that.
I mean, it's not like they need storage space for it and costs that could come with it, it's just one variable in one program. Program is still there no matter if I put 1 eur or one million there.
Also, double check retrieval conditions. I've seen that some bank have limits on allowed amounts for cashing out, I didn't check further if there are limits for transactions as well, but you definitely don't want to be stuck with a bank which says that you're not allowed to do more than 10k transfers per month or something like that.
UBS (& the alike) will start also imposing negative interest rates this summer in EU accounts over a limit here in CH (idem for CHF), So I guess PostFinanz will also do...
I am seriously considering Gold (or Platinum) in backyard. Problem is full of moles. The real ones ;-)
the negative interest rates are valid for everybody , not just those living abroad (I am not even Dutch, but I worked there annd still have a bank account). As somebody else already said, the same could happen in CH and the other banks outside CH as well.
ABN-AMRO (Dutch Bank) started applying negative interest with a threshold of 2.5M on year ago, went down to 500K euros after 6 months, now it is 150K .... and I suppose it could go lower.
Platinum has the disadvantage over gold in that you pay VAT so you have an immediate 7.7% performance hit (probably haven't calculated that right but...).
In terms of logistics: EUR 100'000 is approx. 2111grammes of gold, which would be a cube of gold with the dimensions 4.78cm*4.78cm*4.78cm. Would make a nice paperweight for the desk...
Maybe look into N26. It's a German bank with a branch in CH where you get a EUR account. You would need to check if you can transfer from an NL account.
I have an account with them but paid into it from a CH account so not sure.
It's a bit sad that 1 million CHF is not enough to fill out a 20-30L duffel bag like in the movies these days. Not even the archetypal attaché briefcase in 70s and 80s movies.
After knowing this, I'm tempted to pay my next car in cash and fulfill a childhood fantasy. A normal letter envelope (C5/6) should be enough to hold the bills hahaha
I just had a chat at the phone with PostFinance and they told me that negative interest are already imposed (!??!?!) to an extent of 0.75% after a certain threshold (something above 100K or 250K... I didn't take notes)
When I tried to get more details the operator redirected me to a face to face consultation.