Swiss retirees with UBS bank accounts

[Dario]

For the second time I saw today a disturbing article in the Swiss newspaper BLICK. Until now, UBS charged customers a monthly account fee of a bit less than 30 Swiss Franks, that was an affordable 900 some Thai Baht. But from January 1, 2021 on UBS will charge their customers 330 Swiss Franks, that is approximately 10'000 Baht ... per month!

A few years ago I had a similar problem with my Swiss bank account (not UBS) and a friend of mine suggested me an easy solution. If anyone needs help, just pm me. I don't make  one cent to help, but I'm happy I'm able to offer that help. We live in critical times anyway.

[schweizer]

cannot find this on Blick, or 20min.ch or insideparadeplatz,ch, do you have any other source for this information

[Dario]

https://www.blick.ch/wirtschaft/nach-gebuehren-schock-durch-ubs-schweizer-rentner-in-thailand-schickt-hilferuf-id16165803.html

 

Mods, please be so kind and delete. Thank you.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Dario

[Dario]

18 minutes ago, schweizer said:

cannot find this on Blick, or 20min.ch or insideparadeplatz,ch, do you have any other source for this information

 

https://www.blick.ch/wirtschaft/nach-gebuehren-schock-durch-ubs-schweizer-rentner-in-thailand-schickt-hilferuf-id16165803.html

 

 

Edited October 29, 2020 by Dario

[schweizer]

thanks, so it just impacts those 100% in TH, luckily my address is still in CH ????

 

Edited October 29, 2020 by schweizer
adaption

[Swiss1960]

I cancelled my UBS account 2 weeks ago due to their outrageous fees and bad service.  Not yet sure about a solution for the time my pension will start to flow, but still some years to go.

 

Still hoping that ASO (Organization is Swiss abroad) might be able to convince I.e. PostFinance to offer "chap" accounts for Swiss abroad. 

[Sydebolle]

As an alternative; you are aware of the fact, that you can open a "foreign currency deposit account" in Swiss Francs with most commercial banks. 

You transfer the money from anywhere to your newly opened Swiss Franc Account; it will cost you no fees whatsoever but also does not gain any interest. 

You can change any amount at any given moment DURING BANK WORKING HOURS, in person in the bank or through internet banking. The advantage is, that you know exactly, what exchange rate you get and you can change your money whenever you want/need at the exchange rate you know prior to effecting the transfer from your Swiss Franc account to the Thai Baht account. 

I've used that for the last 20+ years with Bangkok Bank and it works flawlessly. 

[Leaver]

On 10/30/2020 at 2:26 PM, Sydebolle said:

it will cost you no fees whatsoever but also does not gain any interest. 

No fees, at all, for an international transfer?

[HampiK]

There are still some banks in swiss, which allowed to have a free bank account even when you live outside switzerland.
But also they likely change. I have a CA NextBank account for which I not have to pay any fee (Minimum balance is 20'000 CHF).

They even send mail to Thailand without any problems. About 1-2 years ago it was even possible to open the account from outside switzerland. Now you need to prove some connection with switzerland. Meaning (as I understand it) if you have a pension this should be enough for allowed to open an account with them.

A free ATM card is give as well. So for me this is much better than UBS, CS or any other of the big banks which only interested in the big fees.

 

About the CHF Account on some Thai banks, there is still the fee for the transfer. and there is no garantee (security) compared to the Thai Baht account which will be 1 million garantee from next august on (right now still at 5 million)!

[Sydebolle]

20 hours ago, Leaver said:

No fees, at all, for an international transfer?

The subject was account MAINTENANCE fees; I do not know about international transfer as I never did that. 

[freeman01]

I found this article from bloomberg : https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-09/ubs-plans-higher-fees-to-push-rich-clients-out-of-costly-cash

The article reference this UBS link https://www.ubs.com/content/dam/assets/rc/wealth-management/202006-pl-excerpt-wmsc-e.pdf

 

From what I understand the changes in price only affect client who use the "wealth management" service and not to client with regular bank account, see page 27 on the list of services and prices document https://www.ubs.com/content/dam/ubs/ch/swissbank/private/zahlen-und-sparen/konten/services-and-prices.pdf 

 

So nothing to worry for simple clients it seems, thanks god I was worried for a second there ...

 

[Leaver]

On 11/2/2020 at 4:53 PM, freeman01 said:

I found this article from bloomberg : https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-09/ubs-plans-higher-fees-to-push-rich-clients-out-of-costly-cash

The article reference this UBS link https://www.ubs.com/content/dam/assets/rc/wealth-management/202006-pl-excerpt-wmsc-e.pdf

 

From what I understand the changes in price only affect client who use the "wealth management" service and not to client with regular bank account, see page 27 on the list of services and prices document https://www.ubs.com/content/dam/ubs/ch/swissbank/private/zahlen-und-sparen/konten/services-and-prices.pdf 

 

So nothing to worry for simple clients it seems, thanks god I was worried for a second there ...

 

Will probably cause a lot of Swiss expats to downgrade their account.