Hi Stephanie,

Things work differently over here, credit cards are unknown, you will be paid directly by your boss in Gold, which you need to check to make sure that it's pure. For that you need a small measuring beaker and some weighing scales. Then you need to store the gold safely because not all people here are Swiss and some may covet your gold. Buy a small safe box to put under the matress in the dormitory and have a strong money belt to store it in during the day. You can post the gold back to Canada in the normal mail, but it's best to send it first class so it doesn't get lost.

And remember to make sure not to accept any pieces of 8 from men carrying parrots.

cheers

It's fine to use your c/c, but depending on your card/provider, you may find fees are applied for each transaction as it's in a different currency, or at the least the exchagne rate the bank applies won't be great.

If you can open a bank account for such a short period, I would recommend it - just a basic one from Post Finance would be fine. You can then transfer money from Canada in one chunk. If you use something like Oanda.com, you should get a pretty good rate - definietly better than on your c/card.

You can of course withdraw money on your debit card, but you'll pay a bit more for the priviledge with commisions and exchange rates.

I am a long term Swiss resident and I'm planning to close out an account with a Canadian bank, and I would like to send the balance to one of my Swiss bank accounts.

I have asked the Swiss banks about wire transfer charges and cheque clearing charges and the replies are not very clear. Has anyone had recent experience with sending Canadian dollars by wire transfer or cheque to a Swiss bank?

My Swiss banks told me that it depends on the choice of who pays charges: OUR (sender), SHA (shared), BEN (receiver). However, my Canadian bank does not use this system and would have to charge me $40 regardless of who pays the 3rd party fees. 
Migros Bank told me that they charge Chf 20 for SHA charges on transfers, and Chf 10 to 150 to clear cheques.
Post Finance said they charge nothing for incoming transfers but have no idea of 3rd party charges, and they charge Chf 15 to clear a cheque.  The Chf 15 seems to good to be true.
UBS says it only charges Chf 6 for transfers, and Chf 40 to clear a cheque.

My other option is to use my debit card, but there I also have no idea about potential 3rd party charges and fx rates. My Canadian bank only charges a flat fee of $4 per withdrawal. As long as the fx rate is not really awful, this might be the best method.

I cashed a CAD cheque in Geneva about 20 years ago with UBS, and it cost me Chf 50, about half the value of the cheque. 

I'd like to hear about your experiences.

After much research on bank fees & such we used the website Transferwise to do the opposite transfer (CHF from Swiss account to CAD account). Check their website to see how it works, it's pretty innovative. The problem with banks is that they do not give you a very good exchange rate, so even when the "fees" seem low, you actually lose money in the transfer. Transferwise charges a small admin fee (I think it's a % of the amount transferred) but the exchange rate they had was the same as on xe.com so we found it was the best deal overall, and by far. Hope this helps!

I also use transferwise a lot, and like it. Good rates, simple to use. 

Get a c/c with no foreign transaction fees and withdraw money as needed. Since internships aren't paid (unless something has changed recently), you won't have to worry about depositing checks etc.

Hi Stephanie,

You should be able to use your CC and Bank card. If you are with a smaller bank or credit union you will be charged much more and will get shitty rates on exchange. But if you are with any of the big four (CIBC, RBC, BMO, Scotia Bank) you will have relatively better rates. If you have electronic banking you can pay your rent etc with this feature. Food and other expenses will depend on your card and number of transactions allowed with out being dinged per transaction. Would be interetsing to do an interest rate comparision.

V

Good points, V. Also CIBC offers credit cards with no foreign transaction fees...