But, it's really funny that the system tells us to spend the money in the bank, while at the same retirement account money is blocked because we must save it for the future. So, spend or save?
That's the point of the negative interest policy.
Marry, problem solved.
Especially with children.
Like I said more banks will charge for EUR deposits as long as ECB stays with negative interest rates. Consider splitting the amount into multiple banks.
If you don't plan to invest get a deposit box at a bank or somewhere else. Get the money out of the bank in cash and keep them in the deposit box. Keep the receipt in case you need to put the money in the bank again, they'll ask for the source of the money so you just provide them with the receipt. You'll pay around 100-200 CHF for your deposit box in Switzerland.
If you're not worried about interest, then open a safe box at the bank and put the cash there. You'd be surprised just how many people do exactly that!
Most broker age accounts will charge fees if you don't trade with them, and some will even charge negative interest rates on cash surpluses (mine does )
It's a problem faced by many people with cash all over the world if holding among others, CHF or EUR!! There are many currencies that have a positive rate of interest but then you run the risk of the currency devaluing. Good luck.
- split the money between many banks to stay under the threshhold
- withdraw some as cash
- invest some of it: e.g. money market funds, stocks
Still getting interest compounded daily on all deposits in the good old US $.
which has horribly depreciated in the last year
It'll come back. US is already gearing up for the battle to save the world.
Thought about this but I read whatever is on the bank safe needs to be insured independently by the customer. Is this random info from the internet accurate?
Indeed. I never thought about it. Such a small pack. Now I understand why smugglers keep "forgeting" about cash in their suitcases when going through customs
Open an account with N26. German bank. in EUR. 0 fees. Feeless SEPA transfers + FX advantages of Transferwise since they are partners.
However, if I was in your place, freezing 100k would be such a pity. You don’t have to make risky plays but at least throw that one into an index fund such as VTI and forget about it until you need it. Just my personal opinion though.
This is a reason why some countries don't issue high-value notes any more and I believe it's something that's often also discussed in Switzerland.
I was recently watching Narcos on Netflix and burying bills did not always work out too well...
I checked N26 and I noticed a "*" where it states: "A free* bank account"
which means: "Up to €50,000 balance, after which a deposit fee of 0.5%"
Actually my plan was to invest my liquidity but I didn't have time to find a proper way to do it.
I am considering to find brokerage firm that I can use regardless of from my "mobility" in CH/EU since I change country of residence every 1-2 years.
The idea is to create a low risk portfolio (ideally in Euro) to start with. Hopefully I will manage to find some kind of lazy portfolio around . Perhaps it would be better to talk with a consultant/professional for that....but I cannot find one!(I have never bought stocks/ETFs)
FYI, I read that buying ETF in US from CH won't be an option starting from 2022.
If you are too busy to think about it just invest in MSCI World - at least until you have more time to investigate properly. You can do that in Degiro in almost all European Countries. Interactive Brokers is an alternative.
PS It doesn't matter what currency you invest in when determining currency risk. Rather what you are invested in (and in particular where those companies do business). Eg if you invest in CHF in a tracker covering small british companies your exposure will mostly be tö gbp not CHF.
Just a follow up regarding the options listed in my initial posts + some info gathered with the previous posts:
1 - Transwerwise provided me with the following information:
If you are sending money via Wise by setting up a transfer, there is a limit where you can only send 1.2 Euros per transfer.
If you are sending money directly from your personal account to your Wise account, there is no limit. How much you can send will depend on your bank.
Please note that your money will be safe and kept in your EUR account. We do not and will not use your money. You can send the money back to your account anytime you want.
There is no fee on adding money to your EUR balances but if you are sending them to your personal EUR account, there will be a fixed fee of 0.28 EUR.
We’ve introduced an annual fee of 0.4% to hold large amounts of EUR in your account.
Personal customers have a free allowance of 15,000 EUR.
The fee only applies to any EUR you hold above your free allowance.
In case, if you go over your free allowance, we’ll wait 3 days before we start charging the fee.
To know more details about how much we charge, please check out our FAQ page: https://wise.com/help/articles/29780...earch-home-EUR
2 - With Postfinance, my current bank in CH, I can open Euro account without additional costs. The threshold for passive interest would be:
250K : in case no additional investiments are ongoing with the bak.
500K : in case in case you have 25K (not 100% sure of that figure) invested
100K : if you become non resident. In this case the bank fees will also increase of 25Fr unless the bank account is converted to savings account (5Fr) which has some limited features.
3- Interactive Brokers seems to be the best bank account for nomad people like me. Degiro does not support all the EU countries for example.
4 - I couldn't manage to find a financial advisor . Postfinance can offer a simplified ETF package with around 5 profile risks to choose from . Cost: 0.75% per year(indicatively) . This would require Euros to CHF exchange....but apparently there are no commission with that operation (I could not believe that, but they confirmed there are no fees, verbally)
In conclusion it seems I will have to spend some time learing how to use Interactive Brokers by myself to buy the following ETFs which should be portable around Europe (probably even further away):
(40%) Lyxor Core MSCI World (DR) UCITS ETF
ISIN LU1781541179 (or something equivalent)
and
(60%)Xtrackers Global Sovereign UCITS ETF 1C EUR hedged
ISIN LU0378818131
Interactive Brokers actually has a max client account of €25,000 at the moment for EU residents so totally useless to me, thats a securities + cash total balance.
Even at the good times of nice positive interest I was always having current accounts with at least 2 different banks. Well, that's me but it's something along the line that I don't want to be ever completely screwed by the system because of an error of a bank, local government, or whatever.
I thought that the negative interest rate was only a Swiss scam. The cantonal banks provide to the customers full deposit protection guaranteed by the cantons. In thought times, when money was flowing into Switzerland from euro zone the Swiss cantons figured out "well, it doesn't cost a penny to write 1 or 10000000 in our computer database, but since people are desperate we may cut off some margin and they'll still be happy to share with us their money".
It's very interesting to hear that EBC also imposes negative interests. Now I fully understand the sudden opportunities in crypto currencies and stocks. I thought it was all COVID related FUD and sudden increase of average savings due to lockdowns.
Well, well, I'm also on the same boat as OP, having some cash sitting idle, just because 1-2 % seems too low to rush for it but I actually cannot find the time to educate myself enough to make a good financial decision.
BTW, regarding 100K+ transfers, expect some annoyances. I was recently going through it.
https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2015/390/fr
Art 14. a: every transaction of 100k or more is a high risk transaction
Art 15: The intermediary have to "get to know it all..."
Actually, I just wonder what is the path (how long does it take) to recover your money if you refuse to cooperate with the intermediary so they have to signal the high risk to FINMA. It all seems to be up to individual interpretation, or over-interpretation, as one of the points mentioned that at a minimum the intermediary must have to document well (and ensure it's correct) where the money came from and where it is going to but in any slight chance some accountant doesn't like your name, your nationality, or something they can start be a nuisance, all in the name of the law
hi I'm Christian, nice to meet you.
It's a long time that I'm looking for something that I like and trust about investment.
Maybe I found some "service". that could be interesting. For example Moneyfarm or Tinaba, are great company. ( robo-advisor ) You can have a consulting but In my opinion, thanks to the chatbot you can take away all your doubts. You can choose your % of risk, everything thanks to the bot. Moneyfarm is rated as the first financial service provider in Italy.
That's it. Have a nice week-end