Top up Revolut on local bank accounts to avoid SWIFT

Revolut could use the services of a swiss branch of a UK based bank (Lloyds / Barclays ?). That would be nice for them and for the users topping up CHF by bank transfer.

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+1 for PLN !
Iā€™m in exactly same situation as original poster. No polish debit card so I cant top up for free. Sending PLN to U.K. Costs lots of money.

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Alternatively for PLN get support for BLIK topups?

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Hey all,
Iā€™m also facing the issue with CHF wire transfers incurring fees. Let me try to recap for the Revolut team:

Issue: Outgoing international Wire transfer fees for CHF wire transfers

Pretty much every bank in Switzerland will charge fees for international CHF transfers (again CHF transfers obviously do not use SEPA) this can be 2-10 CHF but also, in many case, some intermediary banks, depending on the amount transferred, will deduct additional fees (which is hard to predict actually). This makes Wire transfers not worth it unless we wire up large amounts at once.

Issue: No Debit card support

The only debit cards available in Switzerland are Maestro (Mastercard Network), VPay (Visa Network) and the Postfinance Card (). None of these can be used with the current debit card topup system on Revolut. Actually Swiss Maestros and VPay cards cannot be used online.

Apple Pay is not that widespread because it has limited Credit Card support in Switzerland. For instance, I have 2 credit cards none of which are compatible.

Credit card top up works but the 1% fee is, of course, a bit annoying - still cheaper than using the Credit cards abroad directly but too bad for the lost 1%.

Possible fixes

Iā€™m not sure youā€™ll be able to support VPay or Maestro topups as Iā€™ve never seen any Swiss website that offer these as payment methods. PostFinance may be possible though since some websites support it.

Another thing to investigate is a deal with TWINT which is the local competitor to Apple Pay and getting popular as it has the support of and being backed by most major Swiss banks.

For free Wire transfers you need to find a way to provide us with a ā€œSwissā€ IBAN that starts with CH******. Itā€™s the only way to make free wire transfers in CHF.
Obviously an account with a Swiss bank will have a CH IBAN but there are also some Banks in the UK that are connected to the Swiss clearing system and that have dual GB***** and CH***** IBANs, for instance that is the case with Citi bank (with Swiss BC 89095 - I use that trick to transfer to my Broker in the UK) but unfortunately not with Lloyds Bank (which you guys are using right now). Maybe you could partner up with Citi if this is easier for you than with a Swiss bank. To search for banks connected to the Swiss clearing system use: https://www.six-interbank-clearing.com/en/home/bank-master-data/inquiry-bc-number.html

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Great summary! Letā€™s see if any of the Revoluters answer :slight_smile:

Great write up nivco, thanks!

Just to add that credit card top-up is not just the 1% Revolut fee - some Swiss banks charge an additional fee for CHF card payments abroad, at UBS this is 1.75% (:cry:) which ends up with a total loss of 2.75% per transfer, pretty much impractical in the end.

Absolutely agree we need an efficient way to transfer CHF to Revolut to avoid extortionate bank fees - this means either a local Swiss CHF IBAN or some other transfer methodā€¦

How awesome would it be if Revolut could support TWINT topups? You could instantly and freely top up in CHF from your bank account or credit card (depending on what youā€™ve set up in the back end).

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@revolut, any ideas on this? Do you think any of the proposed CHF topup solutions will becoming available in the nearterm? This would really make a huge difference in attractiveness for Swiss customers!

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+1 for supporting TWINT and/or PostFinance online payments.

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@revolut
@anon33247966

Any updates or time schedule for a local bank account in Switzerland, even if was an aggregate one with a reference number?

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Unfortunately, I do not have an update on this yet :frowning: Rest assured, once I have more info I will let you know :+1:

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Twint would be awesome indeed. But I guess the easiest solution would be to have a CH IBAN. Ideally, personal CH IBANs. Any hope for that @anon33247966?

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It would be really useful if the top-up accounts were indeed in the respective countriesā€¦ Polish banks assume that no one will ever send PLN abroad so they either do not support international transfers or charge ridiculous amounts for them (Alior Bank charges 10 GBP for any international transfer).

I also support that you need to provide local bank accounts for top-up in CHF and other currencies in order to really avoid all the fees.

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Itā€™s not perfect, but as far as I know, most if not all Polish banks have free (if used) debit MasterCard or Visa, so in this case, the problem is solved. Top-up with a debit card a few times, until you are allowed by Revolut to setup the auto top-up.

Bonus point for banks in which the card is free only if a few transaction per month is done - charge a few times 50 PLN at the beginning of the month, and youā€™ve got yourself a free debit card.

absolutely need a solution in Switzerlandā€¦ otherwise this is pointless! Top up with a Maestro card in CHF or local IBAN

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Hi
I transferred CHF 500 from Postfinance to revolut and I received only CHF 494 in the revolut account while Postfinance charged CHF 2 for the international transfer.

They (PF) also confirmed that a SEPA transfer would imply a conversion (by PF) to EUR, so this is definitely no option ( as you lose like ~1.5%)

I found the official siwft fees by LOYDS Bank which are GBP 7 for amounts > GBP 100, but I got charged less. So I do not know which intermittent bank actually did charge me the swift fee of CHF 6ā€¦
Anyone any ideas?

PS: I am in favor of an CH IBAN to top-up!

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Hi again
reply to my own postā€¦
But I got an update on Postfinance and top-up via swift in CHF.

  • dont use a SEPA as the exchange rate on Postfinance (via UBS) is 1.25%
  • donā€™t use ā€œour costā€ as this incurs always a fee of CHF20 extra

Amount:____ Fee
0 to 149.95:__ 0
150 -9ā€™999: __6
from 10K: ___10

Plus CHF 2 for the international transfer
According to the lovely lady there is a direct transfer connection to Revolut/LOYDS, so there is no intermittent bank, BUT PF does charge the amount in the table above nonetheless!

So those in this thread that did transfer less than CHF150, it was ā€œfreeā€ (next to the CHF2 for the Auslangszahlung).

If they use UBS as correspondent bank it is 0.- (up to 150) 8.- (up to 10K) and 12.- above. Maybe the one that got charged 8.-, it was wired through UBS. Or maybe it was the 6.- plus 2.-

Cheers
cmb
PS: Best is someone transfers a large amount and then the one trnasfers parts to other collegues/revoluteersā€¦ which would need a bit of trust :smiley:

Hey Andreas, please are there any updates about local bank in Czech Republic for CZK top up? Or at least card top up in CZK. Cheers!

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