Best way to top up in CHF ?

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1

Hi Revolut community!

Now that CHF is available as a top up currency, I’m looking for the best (cost/speed) way to top-up the CHF Revolut account.
Bank transfers are quite fast (around 6 hours from UBS) but apparently all banks are applying a 5 CHF fee for the international transfer to the UK in CHF.

Does anyone know if a Swiss bank provides a Debit card that can be used online ? So far all Maestro and V-Pay cards I’ve tried are blocked for online payments.

Last question: did anyone try to top-up with a Prepaid Mastercard from UBS ? It is working for online payments but I don’t know if Revolut considers it as a debit card or credit card (hence adding 1% fee).

Thanks for your feedback

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2

You could check your UBS prepaid card here and see if the BIN is registered as Debit Prepaid:

http://www.binchecker.org/

Also, you could test the card and see if Revolut charges you the 1%. If Debit / Prepaid is for example printed on the card, you can contact support and they might update their database for the card being correctly recognized as a debit card in the future.

3

Postfinance will charge you 2 CHF per transfer (at least they did for the 50 CHF I transferred).

4

Usually, the Swiss banks do consider CHF transfers not as SEPA, but as SWIFT. Thus, there is no best way.

Possibilities so far:

Postfinance: 2 CHF (fixed)
UBS: 5 CHF (fixed)
Credit Card: 1% (no cap)
Transferwise in CHF to any EUR account, then via SEPA to Revolut: depending on amount

Unfortunately, all my Maestro cards do not have any CVV and only have the IBAN printed on the front…

5

Be careful wit Transferwise / any EUR account. Top ups from third parties to Revolut IBANs are not supported right now. (Only incoming transfers from accounts in ones name are accepted.)

6

I would set up an EUR account with my own IBAN at Paysera.com. There I would send money over Transferwise. (CHF -> EUR). The fee is 0.5%, at least 1.5 CHF. Then, from Paysera.com, I can send a SEPA payment (in EUR) to Revolut. The fee is 0.15 EUR. It is not ideal but not too expensive.

7

How are the CHF 5 deducted from your account? I made a payment almost two weeks ago, the money is credited to my Revolut account but USB still didn’t charge me CHF 5.
How are they deducted in your case? Are they just added to the transfer sum or are they stated separately?

8

I believe it will show up as a separate fee at the end of the month

9

Yes, UBS charges separately at the end of the month (also applies for the SEPA costs etc.).

10

I just did a transfer from UBS with “All charges to the Receiving account” by the time it was on Revolut, 5CHF were deducted from the amount I transferred.

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11

Has somebody try using the pre-praid UBS Mastercard?

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12

Be careful to top up your account with a credit card. For instance Cornercard defines the transfer to a prepaid credit card as a cash transaction, with the same fees like a cash withdrawal from an ATM. 3,5% or min. 15 CHF.

13

Is UBS charging based on amount transfer or is it based on the option selected while transferring

Here are two scenarios

I transferred 1995 CHF, selecting the option “All charges to the Receiving account” Revolut a/c was credited 1990 CHF after reading @rekism post

My friend transferred 4150 CHF, selecting option “All charges borne by sender”, he was charged 20 CHF by UBS

UBS has weird pricing policy!

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14

Thanks for the info Elmarconi !
Do you know if the CHF2 apply to any amount transferred ?
All the best !
Cheers !

15

No, I just made an overview with the information above. However, there are also other threads in this forum talking about fees. Check the following link:

https://community.revolut.com/t/switzerland-most-cost-efficient-top-up-methods/10424

16

Be careful, it is usually more than 2 CHF, especially for bigger amounts if by chance is send by SWIFT and not SEPA.

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Hi @ThomasA,

Have you tried in the meantime topping up with the UBS prepaid card? I tried, but Revolut said it doens’t support the card.

18

I have topup more than one time with ubs prepaid Mastercard 1.75% fee on ubs no charges by revolut

19

Hi All thanks for the convrsation.
Yes I confirm I tried the UBS Prepaid Mastercard and it worked but I had 1.75% charged few days after the topup.
I complained about it and they explained it as per new UBS conditions of June 2017, 1.75% is added when the card is used with a vendor/website outside of Switzerland (even with a transaction in CHF).

So the 1.75% defeats the whole point of the card for me, I returned it and I got refound. For now the best way for me is still the 5 CHF swift transfer.

For the future, revolut confirmed they are working on a Swiss IBAN which will be the best when it comes out, we will just have to do a local CH transfer (faster and cheaper).
Cheers

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20

And what about Transfewise?