In recent years, Switzerland has become a lot less welcoming to foreigners who want to have a bank account there. It has even become more difficult for Swiss citizens who do not live there to maintain a bank account there.
I am not a millionaire. I am not a criminal or money-launderer. I am not a drug dealer. etc. etc. I simply do not want to keep all my eggs in one basket and think it is prudent not to have all savings in one country.
I am fine with paying taxes to the Swiss government on interest earnings (X % of almost nothing is still almost nothing, so they wouldn't be getting much from me anyhow.)
Anybody here have advice about how a Swiss citizen living abroad (Canada) can maintain their bank account in Switzerland?
By using a bank where you only need to be a half millionaire and deposit 500k
I think you need to talk to them, preferably face to face.
Would a CHF account in your local bank be OK with you
Postfinance accepts non residents (as long as they are not americans).
They charge you a 15chf fee a month for the privilege.
Regards
Ian
Auslandschweizer-Organisation surveyed Swiss banks in May 2015 to determine which ones would still work with Swiss citizens abroad:
http://aso.ch/en/consultation/living-abroad/swiss-banks
http://www.aso.ch/files/webcontent/r...elle_WEB_E.pdf
PostFinance looks like a good bet, as suggested by eairicbloodaxe.
As long as you have a corresponding address (ask your friend !) , postfinance let you keep a bank account
I'm an EU resident (within the Euro area, not bordering CH) ). I want a swiss bank account to diversify currency (CHF instead of EUR) and jurisdiction (non-EU).
Also I would prefer a Cantonal Bank due to their A+ solvability ratings and governmental shareholder structure. (UBS and CS are too big to fail, however as they are global banks, with global risk exposure)
I understand German, so I've read trough most of the bank ToS'. Most banks require a extra fee for non-domiciled accounts. However if you go to the ZKB of BKB website, account openings are only for domiciled persons.
Bankcoop and Migros seems to levy extra fees for non-domiciled but it is not very clear they offer these accounts on their website. PostFinance does sent a papermail they require you to come to a Swiss PostOffice.
BCGE (Geneva) has a website in English, has very moderate fees (16 CHF p/m for account and 5 CHF for non-domiciled).
Any readers here can advise on what documentation is needed for PF and BCGE to open a non-domiciled account (if at all)? Anyone has experience with opening at BKB and ZKB?
Never mind residency, what’s your nationality? That’ll goven your eligibility more than anything.
I've the nationality of the EU country where I live.
Which tells me a lot. You could be Croatian (part of the EU), but in Switzerland you are considered non-EU. Refusing to answer a simple question merely makes you look shifty and up to no good.
Anyway, when they say domiciled abroad they usually mean people who live in Germany, France, Italy, Lichtenstein and Austria. They won’t give accounts to people living elsewhere unless you have at least CHF500,000 to deposit. And yes, you would probably also need to provide proof of where the money came from and deposit it in person so they could take your details and a copy of your passport for their records.
It's a northern European country. One of the initial EEC founders.
I'll be able to open an account in person. The money will be wired, and can be explained. I'm not looking for a private banker, just a current acount.
This a public forum, in a conversation with a banker one can be more frank without the world listening in ..
Well, how about going to find that banker in a bank and not here maybe? It is difficult to give answers to a question that is not clear and where OP is not willing to divulge information
I prefer to be efficient. Go to either Zurich or Geneva, visit PostFinance and either ZKB or BCGE. I hear a lot stories 'this can not be done, that can not be done' I wanted to get a feel if a trip would even be succesful.
Also I need to know what questions they ask and what documents to bring, would be a shame if the account opening was a two stage procedure, ie return to get additional documentation.
Calling a service number does not always give you the correct information, or they tell you please go to the website. A difinitive answer is not always available. If someelse has done it I at least know it is possible.
Thanks.
Well you said ZBK doesn’t allow non-domiciled so you may as well go straight to Geneva and talk to the cantonal bank there and PostFinance too - there’ll be a post office branch in the city.
Well you may as well talk to a bank since you clearly are not interested in giving anyone that tries to help enough information to allow them to help.
Your post seems more like a spam post then anything else
Read a bit on
www.deutscheskonto.org The website is all around opening accounts in different jurisdictions (unlike the name suggests also outside of Germany), so maybe you find something interesting there.
I remember one article revolves around a Swiss Kantonalbank account, another around Swissquote.
Maybe >>Singapore<< is an option for you?
Good luck.
I made some calls today: basically if you bring (a promise of) CHF 100K, a passport and proof of address, you can be in business at BCGE.
So thanks!
You might wanna reconsider since bank fees for customer abroad are quite high.
http://www.moneyland.ch/en/swiss-bank-fees-abroad Additionally, the interest rates are for most Swiss bank accounts around 0%, since the Swiss national bank introduced negative interest rates for banks and institutional clients.
At BCGE 0.01% up to 500k on a savings account... http://www.moneyland.ch/de/banque-ca...rgne-sparkonto
Thanks.
Savingsaccounts have a max withdraw of 50K per year, so that is not very helpfull.
BCGE accepts a custody account for your deposit. You can invest the money in securities, or transfer those free of charge (for the accepting bank BCGE, origin bank might charge you for that). Costs for the custody account is 0.2% p/y.
Price for banking with BCGE is 6 account fee + 5 non-domiciled fee CHF per month, so not very expensive.
As for interest. You have to consider the FX element, my guess is that the EUR will depreciate vs the Frank (due to the ECB printing euro's as madman). This will mostlikely offset any interest losses.
Keep in mind we live in a very unstable time frame, keeping money 'steady' instead of lossing it is already a wise investment strategy. (imho)