CSX Review 2024 – Digital Bank account by Credit Suisse
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CSX is a new digital bank account by Credit Suisse. They started this new offer in 2020. This account is much cheaper than the standard Credit Suisse accounts. The CSX bank account can even be free if used correctly.
Interestingly, even large Swiss banks are jumping on the digital bank account wagon. New digital bank accounts are a good trend if they allow people to pay lower fees for their bank accounts.
In this article, I will review the CSX bank account in-depth and compare CSX with other digital bank accounts.
| Yearly fee | 0 CHF |
|---|---|
| Users | N/A |
| Card | Mastercard Debit |
| Currencies | CHF |
| Withdrawals in Switzerland | 2 CHF |
| Withdrawals abroad | 5 CHF |
| Languages | French, German, and Italian |
| Custody bank | Credit Suisse |
| Depositor protection | 100’000 CHF |
| Established | 2020 |
| Headquarters | Zürich, Switzerland |
CSX
So, what is CSX? CSX is the new digital bank account of Credit Suisse. They started this new bank account in October 2020.
You can access a CSX bank account with the CSX mobile application on any phone (except for Huawei). On top of that, you can also access your account using Credit Suisse’s online banking apps (only after you have created it on mobile). This is an interesting point because most digital bank accounts in Switzerland only have a mobile application.
The account consists of a private bank account and a debit MasterCard. You can use TWINT and e-bills with your account. Once again, this is interesting because this is ahead of most digital bank accounts. Credit Suisse reuses a lot of its infrastructure for this new account.
Finally, while it is a digital bank account, you can still get support from real people from Credit Suisse. It is still considered a Credit Suisse account, so you can access real customer support.
So far, the account has no special digital features like instant transfers or budgeting. But Credit Suisse indicated that future features specific to CSX would come, so it may change soon. You can do instant transfers with TWINT, which would fit the same feature.
CSX Fees
Generally, a digital bank account’s most significant advantage is reducing fees. Unfortunately, big Swiss banks are not known for their low fees. So, we are looking at the fees for this new CSX account.
There are three variants of the CSX bank account:
- Basic White
- Premium Black
- CSX Young
The CSX Basic White account is free of management fees. You will get a debit MasterCard and a private account in CHF. And you will not have to pay transaction fees in foreign currencies. But you will have to pay 2 CHF for each of your withdrawals. There is no free withdrawal for this account.
The Premium Black account costs 3.95 CHF per month. It has the same features as the Basic White card. But you get unlimited free withdrawals at Credit Suisse ATMs (all other withdrawals are 2 CHF). You also get perks like movie tickets at 15 CHF, but I think that is not an interesting perk. So, the only advantage of this account is free withdrawals. However, if you withdraw only once a month, the Basic White account is better!
The CSX Young account is for people from 12 to 25 years. It has the same features as the Premium Black account but is free! And you can get unlimited withdrawals at all ATMs, not only Credit Suisse ATMs. It is a very interesting account for young people!
Overall, the fees are okay, but not great. If you never withdraw money, the Basic White account is good. But if you have to withdraw money, Switzerland has better alternatives. And unfortunately, there are still many cases where we need cash in our country.
And I do not understand the appeal of the Black account. The White account is better unless you make two withdrawals per month or more on average. I generally make less than one withdrawal per month, so the Basic White account would be better for me.
Alternatives
It is always important to compare a financial service against its alternatives.
CSX vs Neon
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Neon is currently my favorite Swiss digital bank account. So, we can compare Neon and CSX, both digital bank accounts.
Both banks offer free transactions in foreign currencies. Both digital bank accounts are free. But with Neon, you can get two free withdrawals per month. With CSX, you have to pay 2 CHF per month per withdrawal.
Neon also offers cheap international transfers and direct transfers to other users. It is something that is currently not possible with CSX.
With Neon, you can only use the mobile application, while CSX lets you use online banking from Credit Suisse.
Overall, Neon has more advantages than CSX. It will be significantly cheaper and have more features. The only advantage of CSX would be that it comes from a large bank instead of a startup.
For more information, you can read my review of Neon.
CSX vs Zak
Zak is another good Swiss digital bank account by Bank Cler. We need to compare these two bank accounts together.
With Zak, you can withdraw money at Bank Cler ATMs for free, while you must pay for withdrawals at Credit Suisse. They also both offer free transactions in foreign currencies.
Zak will only give you access to the mobile application, while CSX also has web applications.
Other than that, both banks are very similar. With Zak, you can also access a large bank (Bank Cler).
As a digital bank account, I currently prefer Zak over CSX. For more information, read my review of Zak.
CSX vs Migros Bank
Migros Bank is my main bank account. We should also compare CSX and Migros Bank.
The Migros Bank account is free. With Migros Bank, you get unlimited withdrawals per month at each Migros Bank ATM and each Migros Shop. This makes it cheaper than CSX.
On the other hand, Migros Bank does not offer free foreign currency transactions, so you would still need a secondary card.
Like CSX, Migros Bank offers several applications to access it. Their applications are pretty bad, but that is another story.
As a primary bank account, I prefer Migros Bank over CSX. But as a secondary account (for the free transactions), CSX is probably more interesting. For more information, read my review of Migros Bank.
FAQ
What is CSX Young?
The CSX Young account is for people from 12 to 25 years. It has the same features as the Premium Black account but is free!
What is the difference between CSX Basic White and Black accounts?
The CSX Basic White account is free of management fees while the Premium Black costs 3.95 CHF per month. With the Premium Black account, you get unlimited free withdrawals at Credit Suisse ATMs.
What is CSX good for?
CSX is good if you want a digital bank account and want to use Credit Suisse.
What is CSX not good for?
CSX is quite expensive as a digital bank account. And it is not great for withdrawing money.
CSX Summary
CSX is a digital bank account by the Swiss bank Credit Suisse.
Product Brand: Credit Suisse
3.5
CSX Pros
Let's summarize the main advantages of CSX:
- Excellent account for young people
- Free transactions abroad and in foreign currencies
- The base account is free
- Free debit card
- Access to the full Credit Suisse apps include online banking
- Access to TWINT
- Can use ebills
- Can access physical Credit Suisse offices
CSX Cons
Let's summarize the main disadvantages of CSX:
- No Free withdrawals
- No cash back on the card
- Premium accounts are not attractive
- No Maestro card
- Poor exchange rates
- No instant transfers within CSX users (except using TWINT)
Conclusion
It is great that even Credit Suisse is trying to offer a cheaper digital bank account than its basic accounts. The CSX account is significantly better than other Credit Suisse accounts.
Unfortunately, CSX is not as good as other digital bank accounts like Neon or Zak. The Basic account of CSX is free, but you must pay for withdrawals. If you want many free withdrawals, you must pay 3.95 CHF monthly only from Credit Suisse ATMs. Neon and Zak each have several free monthly withdrawals, and their accounts are free.
As long as they do not offer at least one free withdrawal per month, I do not think they will compete with the other good digital bank accounts. Nevertheless, it is great to get more competition in this area.
Overall, it is a good account, but there is too much competition for it to shine. If customers want to save on their banking fees, I recommend using another digital bank account.
If you have an existing bank account at Credit Suisse and want to keep your fees lower but stay at Credit Suisse, CSX is a good choice. If you are afraid of switching to a fully digital bank account, CSX could be a good middle ground. Indeed, you have access to many of Credit Suisse’s services and get better prices.
If you want to look at other digital bank accounts, you can look at Zak or Neon.
What do you think of this new digital bank account? Have you already used CSX?
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But something I don’t understand; why did you name “no maestro” as a bad thing? Afaik, Maestro and VPay were replaced by Debit cards. The “tech adoption” when it comes to bank cards in Switzerland, was quite a bit behind other european countries such as Sweden. (If you remember, the old cards (e.g. Maestro) only had the IBAN on it. My customer rep. At Raiffeisen (changed to Credit Suisse last year) wasn’t even AWARE that debit cards exist in the rest of Europe before RF brought it out like a rly short time after. Horrible.
There are some places in Switzerland where they only accept Maestro and not any credit/debit cards. For instance, that was the case when paying for my wife’s marriage visa or at the embassy. This was a few years ago, so it’s likely better now.
But Switzerland is much behind most countries for tech.
Jesus xS. But we’re still further than the germans at least;)
I’ve opened csx account on January 2023, i also opened another two saving account for my kids just because it’s free. They have on some places like in Bern, ATM where you can fill the ATM with coins (if you have many of them from time to time) and those just land on your account. I like that really but otherwise i don’t use this account.
But i must say i have never seen so terrible app like CSX. This is just embarrassing. It’s awful slow and each time i open the app there is a spam and ads for other csx services, horrible. I’m considering going somewhere else.
Hi HP,
Thanks for your feedback. It’s indeed good that you can deposit coins, it’s becoming rarer and rarer.
And sorry to hear about the horrible quality of the app. It seems quite recurrent. I have had many issues with both PostFinance and Migros Bank apps as well, they are pretty bad.