I am an US citizen living on the German side of the Swiss/German border.
As the Euro ́s death throes seems to have entered it ́s final phase, I ́d really like to open a bank account in Switzerland but unfortunately being a non-resident and a US citizen simultaneously doesn ́t help with that.
By now all the banks I contacted either wouldn ́t accept US-citizens living outside of Switzerland or will only do so if those non-residential "US-Persons" happen to be multi-millionaires, which unfortunately I ́m not.
Is there anything I can do? May be a bank I didn ́t check by now?
Sorry, but you don't stand a chance unless you have a very high net worth. No bank here has the resources to comply with the US exterritorial laws that have been put in place unless you make it worth their while. Its USG rules that prohibit this, not Swiss banks.
You have so many misconceptions I’m not surprised.
The EU is a highly regulated organization and its currency the Euro is the currency of a major trading block and its a reserve currency. Now if you expect that 450m are just going to go, oh dear, and let it all collapse then you have no where to go because the same criteria will lead to same conclusion on any alternative.
Between money laundering and tax evasion pretty much every first world country is well locked down at this stage. And putting money out of the reach of one government means you are putting within reach of another and EU/EEA/CH governments do cooperate.
Besides, currency is not much of a hedge against inflation in any case.
Yep, because placing your valuables in a little metal box and giving it to a non regulated company where you have no idea who’s behind it is a low risk option...
If you want Swiss Francs why not just use a brokerage (e.g. InteractiveBrokers) and keep currency there? They do charge an interest rate for keeping over 50k CHF but most banks charge a fee here anyway, and if SNB raises rates again it may go above 0% interest.
Is there any benefit in knowing who is behind Credit Suisse? We'll know in a few months down the road
Anyway you're right. The safe box is not the lowest risk option, it's a hedge, or even a bet.
PS. OP is US citizen. Emerging economies are poised to have a hiccup and lots of money will be converted from MXN, TRY, BRL and others to USD. I wouldn't discard the USD a good hedge during the storm.
Also seems like you could use something like Wise to keep other currencies at hand, they make it pretty easy.
You're not going to earn interest (I don't think), and I don't know how they're going to do in a worst-case-scenario, but for me I find using Wise quite simple and they offer a wide variety of currencies.
It will be interesting to see how things go, the US has not been responsible with debt or monetary supply in the last few years (or decades). I don't think the greenback has the same perception of impenetrability that it once did.
As a US citizen I'm certainly concerned that the short- and medium-term are going to be quite painful, and perhaps the long-term as well.
There's a lot of "the grass is greener in the neighbor's yard" attitude at play here.
Also, everything is relative, and nothing's perfect. Probably the US has not been that responsible, but as long as the USD is marginally better than other governments/currencies, it works.
BAck, to OP, a bit in EUR, a bit in USD, other bit in brokerage account as Enohzee mentioned and that's already a significant of money.
Yes there is. You can't just buy a banking license. With all the supervision, audits, background checks etc... you are less likely to come a cropper. Anybody can set up a document repository service.
There was a case of something like this in Dublin a couple of decades a go now. It started out a document exchange service and when all was going well, customers encouraged to start using it as repository - just leave your valuables in an extra envelope in the box. Well one Monday morning six months later no one turned up to open the office...
This was back before Ireland figured out low taxes and the effective tax rate was around 46%, so there was most likely a lot of cash in those extra envelopes.
This often happens people get so caught up in avoiding a perceived risk that they put themselves in the path of a real risk.