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Online banks

They offer cer­tain advan­tages when com­pared to classic finan­cial insti­tu­tions. Online banks have one big draw­back though: It is often not very easy to con­tact them.

Some tips for using online banks:

  • Remember there may be some prob­lems with online-only banks:  They often only offer lim­ited con­tact and sup­port options.
  • Only credit as much money to your online bank facility as you will need in the fore­see­able future.
  • Do not per­ma­nently store any other credit card details to fund your online bank account with your online bank. Once you have suc­cess­fully added funds, make sure to remove your credit card again. 
  • Don’t have an online bank as your only facility, but make sure to also keep an addi­tional account which you can for instance use to pay at favourable terms when on holiday.
  • Don’t just rely on one pay­ment facility when on hol­iday, but always keep a second option avail­able – and this applies across the board, not just to online banks.
  • Check online offers by Swiss finan­cial insti­tu­tions. They fre­quently offer better sup­port and easier con­tact options than for­eign online banks.
  • Use your app’s secu­rity set­tings – it is often pos­sible to (tem­porarily) block cer­tain trans­ac­tions such as cash with­drawals, online trans­ac­tions or con­tact­less pay­ments, thus increasing the level of your credit card pro­tec­tion. Acti­vating and deac­ti­vating such blocks only takes a few clicks.
  • If pos­sible, use vir­tual dis­pos­able cards for your online shop­ping. These cards can only ever be used for exactly one pur­chase, since all card details are auto­mat­i­cally regen­er­ated, stop­ping fraud­sters from using stolen credit card data.

Con­ve­nience for little money

They have smart names such as “Rev­olut”, “Neon” or “Zak” and pro­mote their low fees and cut­ting-edge apps: So-called online, smart­phone, neo or Internet banks are becoming ever more pop­ular in Switzer­land, too.

These are finan­cial insti­tu­tions which offer their prod­ucts exclu­sively online. They don’t have any branches and fre­quently no call centre either. Orders are gen­er­ally only accepted online, usu­ally via the respec­tive provider apps. This saves on costs and enables them to offer favourable pricing struc­tures, e.g. for­eign cur­rency exchange rates and low or no trans­ac­tion costs. Tra­di­tional finan­cial insti­tu­tions just cannot com­pete with this.

In addi­tion, such online banks often con­trast favourably com­pared to classic finan­cial insti­tu­tions by offering better user con­ve­nience. Installing the app, opening an account, applying for cards and under­taking money trans­ac­tions all become child’s play. Some other useful ben­e­fits offered to cus­tomers are func­tions such as vir­tual credit cards or flex­ible pay­ment options.

The price to pay for low bank charges

How­ever, cus­tomers often have to pay for such con­ve­nience and com­pa­rably favourable con­di­tions when they are then unable to con­tact anyone in a hurry if they have a problem or query. With for­eign online banks in par­tic­ular, this can cause con­sid­er­able trouble.

Tra­di­tional finan­cial insti­tu­tions now increas­ingly offer sim­ilar online prod­ucts, too, with the added ben­efit of better sup­port. You should there­fore also check out online banking facil­i­ties by Swiss banks.

Online banks don’t have any branches, but offer their prod­ucts exclu­sively via online chan­nels. Orders are gen­er­ally sub­mitted via an app. Despite cus­tomer ben­e­fits such as cost sav­ings and easy oper­a­tion though, the down­side is that it often proves dif­fi­cult to con­tact these banks, or obtain any support.

What else would you like to learn about security when e-banking?

Reg­ister for a course now
and learn more:

Basic course

Find out about cur­rent Internet threats and some easy pro­tec­tive mea­sures, and how to securely use e-banking.

fur­ther information

Online course mobile banking/payments

Find out about mobile banking, mobile pay­ments and how to securely use these apps.

fur­ther information

Online course for the under-30s

Learn how to use your smart­phone securely. Next to basics, we will show you what you should know about social media, clouds, mobile banking and mobile payments.

fur­ther information

Course for SMEs

Is your organ­i­sa­tion suf­fi­ciently secure? Learn which mea­sures you can take to sig­nif­i­cantly strengthen your organisation’s IT security.

fur­ther information