How to open a Swiss Franc bank account?

Fulham_Mark

In anticipation of a hung parliament and possible run on the pound sometime this year due I want to move most of my spare pounds to swiss francs.

Switzerland seems to be the only financially stable country left and the currency is already rising.

I'm in Switzerland next week. Anyone know what documents I need apart from a passport? There is a lot of info on the web for residents (various classes B, L etc).

Also from an investment perspective, I'm going to leave cash ISAs as they are since they are income tax-free so can handle a 20% fall (income tax rate) and non-UK unit trusts I'll keep too. Presume this is reasonable hedging

any help will be great, need to do this quick!
Mark

DiggerUK

Mark,
It seems you are planning to short the paper pound with paper francs, yes?
What are you then proposing to do with the paper francs, buy back paper pounds?

Why not cut to the chase and buy gold.
That way you not only take a short position against the UK pound, but against all paper currencies.

There are only two things worth going to Switzerland for, the views, the food, the public transport, the skiing, cuckoo clocks, chocolate and gold.

Enjoy the trip.

Kohoutek

If you're doing it purely from an investment/currency play rather than anticipating transacting in swiss francs in the future, you could just invest in a currency ETF.

There are several that are long CHF short USD, there may be one that is short sterling too.

HSBC's UK offshore department offers foreign currency accounts, including CHF:

http://www.offshore.hsbc.com/1/2/international/savings-accounts/currency-savings-account

Fulham_Mark

thanks.

Buying gold is an alternative or complimentary measure to owning CHF.
But I wonder whether the gold price is too high or whether the cost of ownership are high, I have no idea how you buy and sell large amounts of gold.

Not speculating for profit, I simply want to avoid ending up in the situation where I am stuck here with lots of pounds that are worth much less and being reduced by inflation and tax. And knowing that I wanted to leave in April 2010!

There's a 50% chance I'll buy a chalet in the Swiss alps and partially live there so I'd hate to see the chance of that slipping away.

I'll look at the HSBC account too thanks

ScarletBea

Normal savings accounts in Switzerland pay an extremely low interest rate, even ages ago when the UK was paying 7%+.

Unless you have a good £100k plus, then it's not worth it, I think....

sabretoothtigger

In anticipation

Markets anticipate and the pound already fell some. You might find the 'sell on the news' dynamic best describes this situation, google it

There's a 50% chance I'll buy a chalet in the Swiss alps and partially live there so I'd hate to see the chance of that slipping away.

That makes more sense then. Swiss franc used to be gold backed but I think they print money like every other country now, they do not want their exchange rate to appreciate too much