We're planning on leaving Switzerland in the near future to move the UK, and looking at what we do with our money and pensions here.
- For our money, UBS have offered us an additional account in GBP into which we could convert our money before sending it to the UK. Does anyone have any experience of such a thing? As it would be without fees, and we can agree an exchange rate in advance it sounds like a good way to safely convert out money (without directly transferring CHF to our UK bank), but I would assume the rate would still not be as good as XE or Transferwise?
- And related, does anyone have any experience of moving large sums money with XE or Transferwise? The thought of a non-bank to bank transfer makes me rather nervous!
- For the Pillar 2 pension contributions, we've been offered a UBS Vested Benefits account - does anyone have any feedback on it? Judging by our Pillar 3a performance (rather limited) I would guess that the UBS is easy, but not really the best performer. As we're moving to an EU country (while the UK is still in the EU ) I understand that we can't move the money out of CH, that it would need to stay here until I retire. I guess it would make sense to move the Vested account to a low tax canton like Schwyz so that if the UK leaves the EU, or we move to a non-EU country that we can cash out if we want with low tax (compared with Basel taxes)?
- I assume that you can apply for a Vested benefits account from outside of CH if your funds are staying here?
- Also, for the Vested Benefit account, I understand we can cash out if we buy a house to live in - do you still have to pay the withholding tax if you've already left CH?
Thanks very much!