It could be either the balance you have that enables you to keep it open without any extra costs. On the other hand moving to the US could mean you have to close it due to reporting issues. Or it could be that you can keep it open with extra costs so check and come back with what you find and do.
I spoke to a PostFinance employee, I'm a B permit holder and was asking about moving outside Switzerland to the EU, in general.
He said that there is no problem, just change the address though the web interface. BUT with a foreign address I would no longer be able to do certain operations, like opening new accounts and such.
I can keep my credit card and he even said they could provide me with a "Maestro" card in exchange to the PostFinance yellow card to be able to draw money wherever I want.
This was at the PostFinance office in St. Francois, Lausanne.
I've heard this before and, TBH, I wouldn't rely too heavily on it as even if true today, they may well change policy in a year or two depending on how US/EU pressure builds on Swiss banks.
I have a PF account and moved from CH to Germany Feb2012. Just got a letter (2 weeks ago) informing me that they will now charge account fees of 5euro per month for residence in EU countries 10euro per month for other counties. I was paying no fees previously.
Does anyone have any recent experience with closing a Credit Suisse account and moving to the US? I need to keep it open for a few more months and then I'm happy to close it, but will they force me to close it tomorrow if I tell them we're moving this week?
Don't look for problems, wait till you get your rent deposit back & have paid any outstanding tax etc before telling the bank. If they ask after 3 months of inactivity then you should tell them, however the charges for a non resident will be quite high.
Not sure about US-citizens, but money-net.ch (online branch of BEKB) offer free accounts which can remain open after leaving, including changing address to outside of CH.
Drawback: No additional accounts or cards can be opened/added after leaving, with the exception of renewing existing expiring cards.
A Maestro card is CHF 20/year. So you ́d have to keep it consecutively to conserve it for future usage.
I am an American and have had no problem whatsoever keeping my Swiss account through a move back to the US as well as to elsewhere in Europe. all it took was a 10 minute visit to the bank to sign the change of address forms.
Do the banks, e.g. Postfinance, charge these upkeep fees after you move out, even if you keep a vested benefits account holding your 2nd pillar amount with them?
In PF's website it says the amount in the vested benefits will count towards the 7.5k CHF total that they require in order not to charge fees, but apparently that total is only if you live in Switzerland. On the other hand, a vested benefits account will be staying here many, many months if you leave to a EU country and can't cash out the 2nd pillar, so it doesn't seem right that they can charge you.
To update - I didn't bother to tell Credit Suisse we were leaving for the US. We get only e-documents from them except for the rare form, and our mail was forwarding (without notification to those sending us mail) to our US address. By about three months after we had departed, we had received our Pillar 2 funds into the account, the remaining rental deposit, some other funds coming our way, and had paid last bills. During this time, I transferred chunks of money through xe.com to our account in the US. Once everything looked pretty done and there was a minimal amount of money in our account (less than 500 CHF), I sent a letter to Credit Suisse to an address that a phone representative gave me (it seemed to differ based on where you opened your account - ours was opened in Zurich). In the letter, I requested that the accounts be closed and the remaining balance, minus any fees, be transferred to our US bank account (I gave the SWIFT code, wire routing number, and account number, since the US doesn't have IBAN), and had both account holders sign the bottom. Approximately 2.5 weeks after I mailed the letter from the US, the funds arrived in our US account.
I was hammered for 700ish CHF. Apparently UBS has an annual withdrawal limit of 50k or so on their saving accounts and it's not waived for account closure. I wound up paying this penalty during the SWIFT transfer back to #murica. Ouch.
The lesson here is if you think you might want send your money back home at some point, don't bother with the savings account -- the pennies in extra interest isn't worth it. Just keep everything in the current account.
One more useful tidbit: If you want to continue to hold CHF or EUR after you leave, the funds can be wired without conversion. I have a bank on the US side that can hold one of about 20 different currencies. I didn't have to pay a penny for this.