Alternative to UBS for "simple" needs

[OxygeN]

Hi all.
Paying CHF 8.- per month for the UBS account. I'm looking for alternatives (for my SO). The basic needs are as follows:

• checking account for incoming salary and the usual payments (rent, health insurance and so on);
• possibility to retrieve cash from ATMs with no costs (or the least possible);
• savings account to use as emergency fund (likely between CHF 30k and 50k, so better to have some interests higher than the 0,45% UBS is giving);
• credit card with no fees (or the least possible).

Money is being actually removed from UBS managed investments and moved over to IBKR - "VT and chill" would be the strategy.
3A is already with Finpension.
For EUR there's already both a Wise and a Revolut account (the former one being mostly used).

I was looking at wiLLBe for the savings account part, but for the rest I haven't yet looked too deep into.

TIA for any suggestions!

 

[Baptiste Wicht]

Hi,

If you care about the interest rate, I would say Alpian for everything and then Certo as credit card.
If you do not really care about the interest rate, Neon would fill all needs.

I would not use Willbe for the salary and generally having not too many accounts is easier, but you could do Neon + WillBe as well.

 

[OxygeN]

Hi,

If you care about the interest rate, I would say Alpian for everything and then Certo as credit card.

Can you detail?

If you do not really care about the interest rate, Neon would fill all needs.


I would not use Willbe for the salary and generally having not too many accounts is easier, but you could do Neon + WillBe as well.

I wouldn't suggest using weLLBe for salary either - I'd really use this one only for the savings part. If I get similar interests with Alpian, I could go with them. I agree that having less accounts/banks is easier to manage.

 

[Michael]

Jumping in here with Yuh, as I don't see an advantage of Alpian. Yuh has keeps a consistently 'high' interest (same as Alpian*) and its way more established (user count, twint integration etc.) than Alpian.

*for <100k. If you have >100k then Alpian would give you 1% though.

 

[OxygeN]

Jumping in here with Yuh, as I don't see an advantage of Alpian. Yuh has keeps a consistently 'high' interest (same as Alpian*) and its way more established (user count, twint integration etc.) than Alpian.

*for <100k. If you have >100k then Alpian would give you 1% though.

So I gotta compare:
Alpian
Yuh
Neon
wiLLBe
Certo (for credit card only)

I'm not going to have more than 100k as I want to still be covered by the regulations (100k coverage).

 

[OxygeN]

OK, I've done a bit of an initial research. Therefore I'm back with some questions to understand if I got it right

Alpian vs. Yuh
In fact the latter seems to be "better". Yuh has 1 free ATM withdrawal per week, whereas Alpian is Fr. 2.- for each withdrawal.
The interest rate is the same on both for CHF (0.75%).
What I don't yet know:
- are LSV, eBill and TWINT possible with these two?

Neon
It's worse than the above, given the fact that there's 0.00% interest and the first physical credit card costs Fr. 20.- and you can only withdraw twice per month for free.

Certo
Sounds good at least regarding the cashback (my SO is mainly buying groceries at Migros, but even if it would change, you can select 3 shops of your choice to get 1% cashback on these).

wiLLBe
This one is slightly better for the interest rates (0.85%), but that's about it.

Do you guys have some more to add to the above considerations?

 

[Michael]

I only know Yuh from actual use. No LSV possible but E-Bill and Twint. Everything where I did LSV before, I do now with automatic E-Bill accepting. It's basically the same, only that you can cancel it at any time easily and there's no need for the tedious LSV setup. Good thing about Yuh is that you could use it as everyday+savings account.

I know @Baptiste Wicht likes Neon, I think mainly due to their good foreign exchange rates (they beat Yuh there, so abroad I try to use Revolut).

My take home:
Best everyday + saving: Yuh
Best everyday + travelling/forex: Neon

Best overall:
-Either Yuh + Revolut/Neon
-Or Neon + WillBe/Alpian

+ any credit card with cashback you like (Certo, Swisscard,...)

 

[Baptiste Wicht]

Can you detail?

Alpian is among the best interest rates and is a fully fledged bank with most features available. However, the debit card is not ideal if you want to be optimized, hence using Certo.

Jumping in here with Yuh, as I don't see an advantage of Alpian.

Good point, I forgot that they also kept their interest rates very high.

I know @Baptiste Wicht likes Neon, I think mainly due to their good foreign exchange rates (they beat Yuh there, so abroad I try to use Revolut).

Indeed, I really appreciate this fact. And I do not need any interest rate because I only keep a tiny emergency fund. I also never withdraw more than once per month, so Neon is perfect for me. And I do not want to have too many accounts, so Neon + certo is fine.

 

[gaijin]

I‘ll throw Radicant into the ring. 0.75% interest on the standard current account (no need to move money between accounts to get a higher interest). Plus cheapest card for purchases in non-CHF (no FX fees). Comes with Twint and ebill, no LSV.

 

[Blackcat]

Hello everyone, I completely fell out of love with Neon after they zeroed down their interest rates. And the last drop was receiving the privacy policy update on Dec 5, which is effective as of Dec 5. Now, this is simply rude! I am moving away from Neon.

For the daily needs I like Revolut a lot.
As for the credit cards - Cashback is free and you can earn... cashbacks. But it's better to use such cards only in CH to avoid the FX transaction fees.

 

[OxygeN]

My take home:
Best everyday + saving: Yuh
Best everyday + travelling/forex: Neon

In my case she's already got both Wise and Revolut for travelling. Would there be any reason to abandon these two and move to Neon?

Best overall:
-Either Yuh + Revolut/Neon
-Or Neon + WillBe/Alpian

+ any credit card with cashback you like (Certo, Swisscard,...)

My actual take is: Yuh + Wise/Revolut (as these are already existing) + Certo

 

[OxygeN]

I‘ll throw Radicant into the ring. 0.75% interest on the standard current account (no need to move money between accounts to get a higher interest). Plus cheapest card for purchases in non-CHF (no FX fees). Comes with Twint and ebill, no LSV.

Can you do LSV, eBill, TWINT with Radicant? Doesn't seem so, at first glance...

 

[Michael]

My actual take is: Yuh + Wise/Revolut (as these are already existing) + Certo

This is what I have.

Well, I have Swisscard Cashback, not Certo, but depends on which one you like more. Nice overview of Swisscard and Certo on the blog.
If you buy often at Lidl or Aldi, then Certo will be better, as they don't accept Amex (Denner, Coop & Migros do though).

Can you do LSV, eBill, TWINT with Radicant? Doesn't seem so, at first glance...

eBill and TWINT you can. Prominently advertised here. LSV don't think so.

So it's basically the same as Yuh, but better (some say "best") Fx fees.
However its overall less popular so far, and it's rather unclear how long it can hold itself. That's why I went with Yuh instead.

Also keep in mind that all of this can change at any timepoint (especially interest rates), and the "best" in 6 months probably won't be the best currently. All of these are good options IMO.

 

[Michael]

With SNB lowering the interest to 0.5 % today, the interest advantage of Yuh will disappear soon. If Neon doesnt change anything they will become competitive/comparable again.

 

[OxygeN]

With SNB lowering the interest to 0.5 % today, the interest advantage of Yuh will disappear soon. If Neon doesnt change anything they will become competitive/comparable again.

Indeed... Therefore the savings account might make sense to have it at wiLLBe (0.85% on CHF). Of course, it means having to deal with more than one or two "financial institutions", but this might be neglectable: the savings account is there just as emergency fund, so no real activity on it.

 

[Baptiste Wicht]

With this significant decrease, we can expect all major actors to lower their rates in the next few days. This will likely include Yuh and willBE and Alpian.

 

[OxygeN]

With this significant increase, we can expect all major actors to lower their rates in the next few days. This will likely include Yuh and willBE and Alpian.

Probably yes, indeed. But decisions have to be taken with the actual data/information - we can't foresee the future and we don't know how much (if/when) the rates will be lowered by all the players in the financial field.
Of course one can wait until this happens, but I think it's bad to wait having a lot of cash at UBS and also invested money with UBS (which is way too expensive).
Last but not least: one can also act now and change later if a better opportunity will be possible (e.g. changing from Alpian to Yuh! or to wiLLBe or whatever move).

 

[OxygeN]

With this significant increase, we can expect all major actors to lower their rates in the next few days. This will likely include Yuh and willBE and Alpian.

BTW: what increase? It's a decrease, AFAIU...

 

[OxygeN]

With SNB lowering the interest to 0.5 % today, the interest advantage of Yuh will disappear soon. If Neon doesnt change anything they will become competitive/comparable again.

Neon gives 0% interest rate as of today. Yuh gives 0.75%, same as Alpian and Radicant (for up to CHF 100k). wiLLBe gives 0.85% on CHF up to 100k. I don't think Neon might become competitive against Yuh: the former allows 2 withdrawals per month, Yuh 4x month...

 

[OxygeN]

With SNB lowering the interest to 0.5 % today, the interest advantage of Yuh will disappear soon. If Neon doesnt change anything they will become competitive/comparable again.

... aaaaand wiLLBe has already lowered their interests: from 0.85% to 0.35% - as foreseable!
Same did Yuh! - down from 0.75% to 0.25%
Alpian hasn't moved yet, but will probably be next - same goes for Radicant.