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Alpian Review 2025 – Pros & Cons

Baptiste Wicht | Updated: |

(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links)

Alpian is a Swiss digital private bank that focuses on the mass affluent. It wants to offer private banking services to more people and make them easier, simpler, and more humane than traditional private banks.

If you are looking for a private bank, should you use Alpian? This review will cover this question in detail by reviewing its fees, features, and philosophy. By the end of this review, you will know whether you should use Alpian.

About Alpian
Monthly banking fee 0 CHF
Users Unknown
Card Visa Debit
Currencies CHF, EUR, GBP and USD
Withdrawals in Switzerland 2 CHF per withdrawal
Withdrawals abroad 2.5% fee
Currency exchange 0.2% (0.5% during weekend)
Management fee 0.75%
Product costs 0.20%
Languages English, French, German, and Italian
Custody bank Interactive Brokers
Depositor protection 100’000 CHF
Established 2022
Headquarters Geneva, Switzerland

Private Banking

Private banks are serving affluent clients with customized services and advice. They are generally helping affluent customers invest their money.

I have not talked much about private banking on this blog before. The reason is simple: private banking is generally expensive. I have never seen the need for private banking before.

However, several readers have told me they were interested in private banking. I would never recommend very expensive traditional private banks. However, digital private banks may offer a good alternative for people who want to delve into private banking without excruciatingly high fees.

So, we can see what Alpian offers to people looking for affordable private banks.

Alpian

Affordable Digital Private Bank
Alpian
4.0

Alpian is a digital private bank, aiming to help affluent people with their money, without paying the outrageous costs of traditional private banks.

Use the code SWISSP to receive up to 200 CHF reward.

Use the SWISSP code
Swiss residents using my code get 75 CHF when they deposit 500 CHF in their account, and 125 CHF when they invest 10'000 CHF with Alpian.

Alpian is among the first Swiss digital private banks. The bank was created in 2019 and launched to the public in 2022.

They focus on mass affluent people, which is people with wealth between 100,000 CHF and 1,000,000 CHF. You can still use them if you have more or less than that, but it is essential to mention that traditional private banks focus on higher categories of wealth.

One of their goals is to demystify private banks. In most people’s eyes, private banks are only for the ultra-rich. Alpian wants to break that myth. To achieve that goal, they provide an online knowledge platform about investments and private banking. In fact, they could rather qualify as a premium bank rather than a private bank.

Traditional private banks are generally only used for investments. On the other hand, Alpian also focuses on providing a great bank account. So, you could use this bank as your main bank and directly invest with them.

Finally, Alpian wants to grow its customer wealth, not only make money. Therefore, they do not accept any investment kickbacks or have no custom products. This allows them to focus on the best products available.

Now, we should see in detail what their features and prices are.

Banking features

4.5/5

Each Alpian account is a multi-currency account. This is great to have this by default. Alpian supports CHF, EUR, GBP, and USD. All these currencies are under a single IBAN. You can convert between these four currencies directly within the app.

Additionally, you can get a savings account. With Alpian, your interest rate will be 0.275% up to 125000 CHF and 0.60% above that (as of February 2025). These interest rates are slightly above average, for large amounts.

With your account, you get a Visa debit card that you can use to pay and withdraw money in Switzerland and abroad. This card does exactly what you expect from a debit card.

Currently, Alpian supports Google Pay and Apple Pay! They do not yet have their own TWINT app, but you can use the card with the prepaid version of TWINT. Furthermore, they do not yet have support for e-bills, but this feature is incoming.

Alpian also has support for virtual cards. This is good because it is a great way to increase security by using virtual cards for some services. They also support instant transfers between customers.

Overall, Alpian has all the features you would want from a bank. It is good that they have a multi-currency account. There are very few Swiss banks offering that feature.

Investment features

4.5/5

Alpian also offers wealth management features.

Alpian uses an artificial intelligence model to generate a basic portfolio model for their investors. These portfolios are then vetted and customized by professional wealth managers.

Each portfolio is different based on a thorough questionnaire. This goes much further than the standard Robo-advisor questions. In the end, each portfolio is different.

The client then has the choice to let the wealth management team implement or change things. This allows an excellent level of customization. It is important to know that Alpian advisors are not incentivized by product sales. This ensures that they can provide unbiased support.

As far as sustainable investing goes, Alpian provides a tool to measure the impact of your portfolio. If you want something more or less sustainable, you can communicate with the wealth managers to improve in any direction.

For your portfolio, they will use bonds, stocks, and ETFs.

Interestingly, Alpian is using Interactive Brokers for its investments. Therefore, it is essential to know that your stocks will not be stored in Switzerland. This is not a problem (I use and recommend Interactive Brokers), but it is essential to understand when comparing financial services.

Overall, Alpian offers interesting features for designing and managing your portfolio. A team of certified wealth managers will supervise it.

There are three different investing mandates:

  1. Managed by Alpian Essentials. This is the simplest mandate, starting at 2’000 CHF. The portfolio will be passively managed by Alpian. This mandate is great to start testing Alpian investment.
    1. With this mandate, you can choose between five strategies (from prudent to very dynamic) and three different investment universe (global, Swiss and sustainable).
  2. Guided By Alpian. In this case, Alpian will guide the investor with advice from experts. However, the investor is then in charge of the portfolio. This mandate is available starting at 10’000 CHF.
  3. Managed By Alpian. In this case, Alpian will actively manage the investor’s portfolio. This mandate is available starting at 30’000 CHF.

For me, a digital private bank is close to a Robo-advisor, except that you get access to professional wealth managers. These wealth managers will create your portfolio and adapt it over time.

Banking Fees

4.5/5

First, we can look at the banking fees.

An incoming transfer in the base four currencies will be free. All incoming transfers in other currencies will be converted to CHF, with a markup of 0.20% (on top of the interbank exchange rate). The markup increases to 0.50% during the weekends.

All outgoing transfers in the base four currencies will be free. Using other currencies will cost you between 2 CHF and 7 CHF, with the same markup mentioned before.

All payments with the card in the four default currencies are free of charge, given you have the amount already. If you do not have the necessary amount in one of the four available currencies, you will pay 0.20% for each currency exchange (0.5% during the weekend). For all other currencies, you will pay the VISA exchange rate, which is about a 0.50% surcharge.

So, overall, these currency exchange fees are much better than the average in the industry. These fees are likely the best among Swiss banks. Very few Swiss banks can beat these rates.

If you want to withdraw money in Switzerland, you will pay 2 CHF for a CHF withdrawal, 5 EUR for a EUR withdrawal, 5 USD for a USD withdrawal, and 5 GBP for a GPB withdrawal. It is pretty disappointing that there are no free CHF withdrawals in Switzerland.

If you withdraw money abroad, you will pay 2.5% of the transaction amount. This is relatively expensive.

As of September 2024, there is no more management fee on the banking account.  Overall, these fees are good. The currency exchange fees are well below the average for Swiss customers. I just wish you could withdraw money for free in Switzerland.

Investments Fees

3/5

For managing your wealth, Alpian will charge you a 0.75% fee on the value of your investments per year. VAT is included in this fee. There are no maximums nor minimums on this management fee. If you have 100’000 CHF with Alpian, you will pay 750 CHF per year in fees.

This management fee includes all advice by Alpian and your portfolio management. The annual tax report is included in the management fee. It also includes all transaction costs. However, this management fee does not include the following:

  • The Stamp tax duty.
  • Currency exchange fee (0.2% during the week, 0.5% during the weekend).
  • Product costs in case your portfolio invests in ETFs.

Regarding currency exchange fees, it is important to mention that most investments at Alpian are hedged to CHF, reducing the fees. It is up to you to decide whether currency hedging is good.

First, traditional private banks are more expensive, generally around 2% per year (sometimes significantly more). So, while expensive, Alpian is much cheaper than a traditional private bank.

And even in general, Alpian’s management fee is not great! Since most investments will be in ETFs, the total fee will be about 1.00% on average.

However, any retail bank will be pricier. Currently, the average investment management fee is about 1.38% (as per Alpian, 31.08.22). So, it is interesting that a digital private bank can be cheaper than a retail bank. However, these fees are still significant. And there are some free retails bank as well.

Banking limits

Like with most bank accounts, there are some limits to your Alpian account. This is especially true for digital banks which tend to have more limits than traditional banks.

Fortunately, there are no limits within the accounts. So you can transfer any amounts of money between your accounts or to another account. This is great because some digital banks have some daily or monthly limits.

On the other hand, use of the card is limited. You withdraw 3’000 CHF per day only. And you only spend or withdraw a total of 10’000 CHF per month with the card.

The only time when these limits would be a problem is if you need a considerable amount of cash. In this case, you would likely need another account from a traditional bank, transfer to it and then withdraw from it.

Other features

On top of the standard features, Alpian also has some perks for its customers.

For instance, you will be able to get priority service with Resolve, a mortgage broker. You can also get access to American Express Platinum for a reduced fee (net 250 CHF for the first year). An Amex platinum provides you with access to lounges and concierge services, for instance. Another example is their partnership with First Caution, a rental guarantee insurance.

Obviously, it is very difficult to value these perks because they will depend on each customer. Some people (like me) would put very little value to it. But I know some people that would thoroughly enjoy these premium perks, and these probably make sense for a private bank.

Alternatives

Since Alpian is first a wealth management platform, we should compare it with other investment platforms.

I have not yet evaluated other private banks, so I cannot compare them. So, I will first compare them with Robo-advisors. Alpian is not a Robo-advisor because humans also supervise each investment portfolio. But I doubt that this brings much value on top of a Robo-advisor.

Since Alpian focuses on the mass affluent, we will compare the fees for a portfolio of 250’000 CHF, which should be pretty common in this category.

Finally, people willing to manage their money with a broker account should not be concerned. Any good broker will be much cheaper than any private bank or Robo-advisor.

Alpian vs Selma

Perfect to get started
Selma Robo Advisor
4.5
Great Robo-Advisor

Invest easily with Selma: a great way to invest in the stock market without the hassle of doing it yourself.

Pros:
  • Beginner-Friendly
  • Degressive Fees
Invest easily Read my review

Selma is a Robo-advisor that is very easy to use and uses index ETFs to propose a simple portfolio to their users. This is entirely automated, based on a few questions they will ask you.

As far as features go, both investment offers are relatively similar. In the case of Selma, your portfolio will be entirely managed by a computer while it will be managed by a computer supervised by humans with Alpian. Both will invest in ETFs.

The main difference will be in the fees. At Selma, you will pay only a 0.47% management fee compared to Alpian’s 0.75% fee. This is a very significant difference.

In both cases, we need to add the TER of the ETFs to the fees, about 0.25%. This gives us a total of 0.72% for Selma and 1.00% for Alpian.

So, Selma is about 30% cheaper than Alpian. This difference is significant.

In addition, your shares at Selma will remain in Swiss custody. This is not a huge advantage, but at the same price, I would prefer Swiss custody.

If you are not necessarily looking for a private bank or a fully-fledged solution, I would recommend Selma over Alpian.

One advantage of Alpian is that you can personalize your portfolio to a higher degree. By speaking with the wealth managers, you can influence your portfolio. With Selma, your personalization would be very limited.

If you are looking for an all-in-one solution, Alpian could be interesting since it is both a bank account and an investment service. However, you will pay higher fees.

Alpian vs Investart

Since Alpian uses Interactive Brokers as a custody bank, I thought it would be interesting to compare with Investart.

Investart is a Robo-advisor that uses Interactive Brokers as well. It offers direct investment in ETFs with a very high level of customization.

From an investment perspective, I would say that both services offer similar platforms. Of course, you will get human supervision with Alpian, but you must balance how much that is worth.

You may require less knowledge to use Alpian. With Investart, you must choose products directly, which requires some knowledge. On the other hand, at Alpian, some people will design a portfolio for you.

Again, the main difference will be the fees. But the total fee of Investart is about 0.50% (average product costs) while Alpian’s is 1.00%. So, Investart will be much cheaper than Alpian.

For more information, you can read my review of Investart.

Alpian FAQ

Is Alpian safe?

Alpian is a Swiss licensed bank. This means that Esisuisse insures your deposits for up to 100'000 CHF. Your investments are in custody of Interactive Brokers, which is a safe and regulated institution as well. So, yes, Alpian is a safe bank.

How much do you need to open an Alpian account?

There is currently no minimum to open an account with Alpian.

How much do you need to invest with Alpian?

The Essentials mandate is available starting from 2'000 CHF. You need at least 10'000 CHF to use the Guided by Alpian plan. And you need 30'000 CHF to use the Managed by Alpian plan.

Who is Alpian good for?

Alpian is good for people that want an affordable private bank in Switzerland.

Who is Alpian not good for?

Alpian is not good if you are looking for the cheapest bank. It is also not good if you want your investments stored in Switzerland since they use Interactive Brokers.

Alpian Summary

3.5/5
Alpian

Alpian is a digital private bank, aiming to open private banking to the mass affluent.

Product Brand: Alpian

Editor's Rating:
3.5

Pros

  • Multi-currency account
  • Fair pricing for a private bank
  • Access to professional wealth managers
  • Transparent pricing
  • Excellent currency conversion fees
  • Low minimum to start trying investment mandates
  • Savings account with good interest rate

Cons

  • No free withdrawals in CHF
  • Expensive for investments
  • No support for e-bills

Conclusion

Affordable Digital Private Bank
Alpian
4.0

Alpian is a digital private bank, aiming to help affluent people with their money, without paying the outrageous costs of traditional private banks.

Use the code SWISSP to receive up to 200 CHF reward.

Use the SWISSP code
Swiss residents using my code get 75 CHF when they deposit 500 CHF in their account, and 125 CHF when they invest 10'000 CHF with Alpian.

When compared with traditional private banks, Alpian offers an interesting alternative. It offers reasonably good bank accounts and fees significantly lower than these large private banks. If you are looking for an account with a private bank, Alpian is a good choice.

Since they have removed the banking fees, Alpian provides an excellent banking package with an excellent price. They have very reasonable currency exchange fees. On the other hand, their investing solution is more expensive than traditional Robo-advisors (but they are also more personalized to each customer).

Therefore, you have to ask yourself whether a private bank is worth the price. Compared to a standard bank and an investment broker, you will pay a lot more to Alpian.

When considering that passive investing works well and that 99% of fund managers cannot beat passive investing over the long term, we must ask ourselves why we should pay such fees.

For me, the mass affluent should not pay such fees. This may become more reasonable if you are a High Net Worth Individual (more than a million) since you have enough money not to care too much. But to grow your wealth, you must be careful about such fees.

Using the same entity for your bank account and investments may not be the best idea. The best banks do not offer investments, and the best investment platforms do not offer bank accounts.

Despite being among the mass affluent, I do not use a private bank and am not looking to use one. I am fairly content with my simple bank system and prefer to separate my investments from my bank.

If you want to use this private bank and want to save on fees, you can use my code SWISSP to receive up to 200 CHF. You will receive 75 CHF if you deposit more than 500 CHF and 125 CHF if you invest 10’000 CHF with Alpian (paid 45 days after investment).

If you are interested in private banks, you could be interested in Everon, another digital private bank.

What do you think of Alpian? Are you interested in private banks?

Recommended reading

Photo of Baptiste Wicht
Baptiste Wicht started The Poor Swiss in 2017. He realized that he was falling into the trap of lifestyle inflation. He decided to cut his expenses and increase his income. Since 2019, he has been saving more than 50% of his income every year. He made it a goal to reach Financial Independence and help Swiss people with their finances.
Discover Swiss Financial Secrets That Maximize Your Money!

Learn easy ways to optimize your finances and save thousands in Switzerland with our exclusive e-book. Learn about the most cost-effective financial services tailored for savvy residents and expats!

Get Your FREE Swiss Money-Saving Guide

65 thoughts on “Alpian Review 2025 – Pros & Cons”

  1. Today I discovered one flaw with Alpian (which may or may not be an issue to you but it is a big one for me).

    They do not provide an ability to generate/download a .csv or Excel file for statements.

    Around this time of year, I get a download of my annual transaction for each bank account I have so as to prepare for the Tax return and see where my spending has been.

    Am really surprised that Alpian doesn’t provide this. All my other banking has this (Yuh, Swissquote, Revolut, CreditSuisse) so this will certainly limit my usage of Alpian going forward.

    I ‘spoke’ to an Alpian Agent via chat and they conformed this was not available but would log the issue.

    1. Hi PatG,

      Unfortunately, this is not uncommon. This is the same for my other bank, Migros.
      I agree that all banks should have this by default since it’s a basic feature that is really helpful. But Swiss banks really lag behind with these kinds of features.

    1. Hi Marcus

      They are very different product: Saxo is a broker while Alpian is a kind of Robo-advisor. DIY with Saxo will be much cheaper than Alpian, I am not sure it’s worth a comparison article.

  2. I opened the account for the multi-currency feature, as I cross borders very often around Europe. I was surprised that their exchange rates are better than Revolut, especially on the weekend. My understanding so far has been that the internal FX rate is better than the Visa rate, so I suggest that you always have a reserve in the currency you are making your purchase, to avoid the Visa card making the conversion.

    On a side note, I’m not sure I understood how the referral works. I used your code to sign up and deposited more than 500 the first time, but didn’t get any indication of whether I met the criteria to receive the welcome bonus. Their own referral program has different criteria (in case I refer a friend), so I’m trying to figure out which one could be applied to me.

    1. Hi step,

      As far as I know, they do not use the Visa rate for the four default currencies, but only the interbank rate plus the 0.20% surcharge. The visa rate is only used for other currencies, which should be less common for most people. And you are right that the internal rate is better than Visa’s.

      It may take a while to receive the reward on your end. Apparently, the rewards are paid within 45 days after you met the requirements. I hope it gets faster than the maximum, but I would not expect it to be instant.

  3. Hi, all,

    I understood during the introduction phase that Alpian as a private bank also will be offering ‘alternative investments’ ?
    Would be interesting to know which alternative investments are possible.

    thanks for the review, dear Baptiste,
    FrankieS

      1. thank you, dear Baptiste.
        possibly, yes. but when I first read of them,
        I thought they would be offering f ex private equity instruments or very special funds as ‘alternative investments’.
        Which, however, aren’t anyway a good thing for us modest retail investors.

        bye, thanks,
        FrankieS

      2. Yes, it’s true that it does not feel very alternative, but more standard. Private equity would be more alternative. Even though, I am not convinced either by their usage.

  4. Just had an interesting “situation” while trying to pay with my Alpian debit card in Denmark. I have 10k usd on my account and had 5 CHF on the chf account. Tried to pay in the restaurant with my card and the payment was declined twice. I assume that because my chf account was empty, while my expectation was that as long as I have money overall, I can pay with my card. And of course it’s Sunday, so the support is not available

  5. According to Alpian GPT they do not support e-bill yet. Aside, the main reason for me to open an account with Alpian is not their ‘private banking’ offer, but the multi currency account – this is unique in CH and comparable only with Revolut/Wise, while being Swiss and regulated by Swiss. Also, their FX rates are competitive vs the above-mentioned ones. My few cents, hope this helps.

    1. That’s weird, their team told me they supported e-bills. I will check again with them.

      It’s true that we have very multi-currency accounts in Switzerland. It’s not unique, Yuh and Swissquote have similar offers. But it’s indeed a great feature.

    2. I’ve tried to pay with that card after that and it worked well. Now I see all the transactions billed from the USD-account, but can’t identify if weekend or regular rate was used.

      I don’t know what was the problem with that restaurant bill. But it was good that I had another card with me otherwise I’d be in trouble 🥶

  6. also the commission on withdrawal is not updated. It is zero for withdrawals in Switzerland now. Considering you put in the main disadvantages, I thought it was worth notifying you.

    1. Is it? I have contacted Alpian just now and they said there is still a 2 CHF commission for withdrawals in Switzerland…

  7. Hi Pat,

    Roman, the Alpian CMO here, thanks for your update, I appreciate it. We also just won a Moneyland comaprison on investment services and fees last week.

    Plus, a special announcement: as of September 1st, we are eliminating account handling fees. Free account for everyone!

    Have a great day!

  8. Update on Alpian as of end of August 2024.

    Alpian have announced that from 1 Sept 2024, they will now give 1% per annum interest credit on EURO and USD. This was previously zero.

    Also they are altering the interest on CHF. 0.75% on balances up to CHF 100k. If you have more than CHF 100k you will get 1% on your FULL Balance.

    In addition, they have done some link up with American Express Platinum with what seems to be the best available introduction package (compared to other offers). Usually the deal from Amex is first year half price (half of CHF 900), 45k to 50k Rewards points. The Alpian deal is 75k rewards plus CHF 200 cash re-credit directly from Alpian during the first year. Other benefits normally in an Amex platinum card (CHF 100 swiss air voucher) apply so the Aplian deal means your first year hugely reduced.

      1. I mean you haven’t modified the article to reflect the fact that owners get 1% on the full amount and not just on the part above 100k. This makes it one of the best savings account in Switzerland if you have this amount of cash to park.

      2. @John Why would you park more than 100k in a single bank in Switzerland? That means that you’re above the bank account balance protection limit (100k) and so you’re not benefitting from the protection for everything above that limit. So you may as well go for more lucrative investments or park the rest in another bank.

      3. @Paul
        Why? Because the interest rate is better than anywhere else (with instant access) and it’s simpler. It’s a calculated risk for money I need to keep liquid for less than a year. As discussed elsewhere, chances of Alpian going down out of nowhere are very slim at the moment.
        I recognise that it’s not ideal, but it doesn’t (yet) keep me up at night.
        If I only had access to more standard schemes where the rates go down above 50k or 100k, then I would split the amount, but it’s a bit of pain at the moment with banks changing their rates every 3 months :)

      4. @John Alpian’s rates keep changing, and even more unpredictably compared to other banks. The 1% thing above 100k is a new thing, these conditions have been changing even more frequently than the central bank interests. It looks like they are still experimenting and trying to find their business model, so you can expect to change again in the future. Either way 1% is not sustainable for them given the current central bank interest rates. WiLLBe is at 0.85% and it’s already extremely competitive.

      5. @Paul
        I agree about Alpian still trying to find its feet. It’s a bit worrying that they seem to target lower segments.
        I think that as long as we’re in a bull market in the US, they’ll keep the interest rates as they are, because if the current strategy fills in the coffers, they can re-invest the funds.
        wiLLBe is where I would put the cream on top if I feel like splitting the amount. You only get 0.85% on the 1st 50k though. And it’s a pain to work with since it’s very restrictive in the way it accepts and makes payments.

    1. Note that the travel insurances are severely restricted because you have to pay at least 50% of your flight, hotel, food, etc. with the Amex card or you’re not insured for those. Considering the ridiculous fees when paying abroad it can easily make it more expensive than a proper insurance that is not tied to a credit card.

      See the full conditions: https://www.americanexpress.ch/dam/jcr:52cab4a8-81ac-4c62-a4f1-6713a38aeca5/versicherungsbedingungen-americanexpress-platinum-gold-card-en.pdf

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