Okay, so I made an assumption. The assumption was broadly this. Someone who is buying a property in Switzerland should be able to open a bank account in order to pay their bills.
Well, technically it's still possible. Practically, it's turned into a surreal experience, more like a nightmare.
I send off an email, telling a bank about where we are in the process, who we are buying through, who the solicitor is etc. By return, I get either, a request for a considerable amount of money 25,000 to 100,000 CHF, or, a request for pretty well everything except my blood group. Still, I'm sure they will ask for that in the next mailing.
I queried the amount at one bank, just to make sure. I was told "It's quite normal". Yeah, right, I'm sure all the Swiss checkout staff and refuse collectors deposit 100,000 CHF in order to get their pay cheque processed.
All this effort is to get a very ordinary current account, paying no interest, with online banking and a bill payment facility.
Given that Switzerland has very low interest rates, I'm starting to feel that it would be cheaper for us to pay cross border banking costs for at least the next 10 years, before we would break even on the losses that a hefty banking deposit would incur in our savings.
I have now learned that Spanish Banks in all the performance aspects I have encountered so far, are miles ahead of Swiss ones.
And we still have no information about when we'll get our permit.
