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Yuh Review 2024: One app to pay, save and invest

Baptiste Wicht | Updated: |

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

PostFinance and Swissquote just started a joint venture: The Yuh banking application. With Yuh, you can save money on your account, pay in Switzerland and abroad and invest in the stock market and cryptocurrencies.

Yuh is an entirely digital offer. They have no offices. You can manage all your money directly from your phone. So, you will pay your bills and invest your money in your smartphone.

So, should you use Yuh? What features does it have? And how much does Yuh cost? We will find out!

In this article, I will review Yuh’s features, fees, advantages, and disadvantages.

About Yuh
Custody Fees 0 CHF
Inactivity Fees 0 CHF
Buy Swiss ETF 0.50%
Buy American Stock 0.50%
Currency Exchange Fee 0.95%
Users 160’000n
Languages English, French, German, and Italian
Mobile Application Yes
Web Application No
Custodian Bank Swissquote
Established 2021
Headquarters Gland, Vaud

Yuh

Great to start investing
Yuh
4.0
No account management fees

Yuh is an easy and affordable way to invest in the stock market and spend money abroad.


Use my code YUHTHEPOORSWISS to get 25 CHF in trading credits!

Pros:
  • Low fees for small operations
  • Fractiona trading in stocks
Use the YUHTHEPOORSWISS code
Code only for Swiss residents.

In May 2021, PostFinance and Swissquote launched the Yuh service. They are trying to unify banking and trading services together. In addition, they want to unify paying, saving, and investing (both in the stock market and in cryptocurrencies) in a single app.

An interesting fact about Yuh is that they will share some of their profits with their cryptocurrency: the Swissqoins.

The main selling point of Yuh is to make it easy to do your everyday banking operations and invest in the stock market. Many people do not invest either because it is complicated or too expensive when starting with small amounts. Yuh tries to fight that situation.

It is important to note that Yuh is not a bank itself. However, for the customers, it does not make much difference. Indeed, your money will be held by Swissquote, which is a bank. It means your money will be insured for up to 100’000 CHF, the basic deposit protection as other Swiss banks.

Since the creation, Yuh has been growing very quickly. In about 2 years, they reached 160’000 customers. This is impressive growth.

So, overall, Yuh is trying to bring many new things! But does that make them any good? We should look at the details to find out.

Banking Features

For banking features, Yuh has all the basic features you can expect: you can pay your bills with the app and transfer money to and from your account. Currently, you can do wire transfers in many currencies.

You will get a Debit Mastercard to make payments and withdraw money in Switzerland and abroad. You can also pay online with a card with CHF, USD, and EUR (and a long list of other currencies).

The interesting thing about Yuh is that you have a multi-currency account. It means you can receive and keep other currencies in your account. So, for instance, you could receive EUR and keep them in your account. So, when you have to pay in EUR, it will directly use that balance instead of converting from CHF to EUR.

A savings goal on Yuh (Source: yuh.com)
A savings goal on Yuh (Source: yuh.com)

You can also do peer-to-peer transfers to other users of the application. This feature is good if you know other users of the app. They also have the usual features like savings goals I do not see any use for. These things are present in most digital banks.

They also have integrated ebills in their app.

Yuh supports Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay if you want to pay with your phone. Since May 2023, they also support TWINT with their Yuh TWINT app. So, Yuh has complete mobile payment support.

Several new features are planned, like virtual debit cards and teen accounts. You can consult their roadmap to follow their progress.

Overall, Yuh has all the banking features we need (and more) and is very transparent about future features.

Trading Features

Yuh is quite different from a standard broker. Indeed, they are trying to keep it simple. As such, they limit the list of stocks and ETFs we can trade. They try hard to make this list representative of what the users would need.

For an advanced investor, this is a disadvantage. But for a beginner investor, this is a good feature because it will help to choose. This makes Yuh easier for beginners.

Another limitation is that we can only use market orders at this time. Other orders, like limit orders, are planned in the feature. I think this makes sense because having multiple order types can confuse users.

It is also important to mention that the app is made to be easy to trade. It is really easy to get started with Yuh.

Yuh also offers savings plans on ETFs and shares, an interesting feature that many investors are looking for. This is a feature that very few Swiss brokers offer.

On top of stocks and ETFs, Yuh also allows investing in so-called themes. These themes represent trends such as the metaverse or recycling. They allow to invest in companies that represent these themes. On paper, this is great. However, these themes are implemented with structured products.

Structured products are among the most complicated investments available. They are not transparent and are often expensive. Some of the structured products offered by Yuh have a 1% fee. For me, these products should be avoided.

Unfortunately, Yuh does not offer any US ETFs. Since US ETFs are currently the best available to Swiss investors, not having them is a big disadvantage for Yuh.

Looking at the list of available ETFs, they are weirdly naming them. For instance, VWRD is called Global Blue Chips. And many other ETFs get the name blue chips.

I cannot understand why they would call them blue chips. VWRD contains all the stocks from the World stock market, not only blue chips. And even for the U.S., VUSD contains all the stocks from the U.S. stock market, not only blue chips.

It is poor miscommunication to imply that the stocks are blue chips which means safety for many people. If they wanted blue chips, they should have taken the Dow Jones Industrial Average, an actual index of so-called blue chips.

Another disadvantage of Yuh is that you cannot transfer your shares to another broker. So, if you want to switch broker, you will need to sell all your positions and then transfer the cash.

Finally, Yuh also gives you access to some cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin and Ethereum. You can access 34 cryptocurrencies, which should be enough for most people. It is unclear whether you can have proper wallet security, but I expect not. And generally, if you cannot have your cryptos in your wallet, you should not use a platform. But since I am not a crypto expert, I will not detail their crypto features.

Overall, Yuh has great trading features for beginners. But it is not an app for advanced investors.

Yuh Banking fees

We start with the banking fees of Yuh.

The basic operations are all free:

  • Paying for your bills
  • Transfer money to and from your account in CHF
  • Paying in Switzerland with the Debit Mastercard
    • Paying abroad is fee-free, but you will pay high currency exchange fees
  • Free transfers in EUR in the EEA zone
  • Peer-to-peer payment in the application

For withdrawals, you will get one free withdrawal per week in Switzerland. Subsequent withdrawals will cost 1.90 CHF. If you withdraw money abroad, you will pay 4.90 CHF.

However, you can withdraw only 1000 CHF per day and at most 10,000 CHF per month. This limit should be good per month, but it could be an issue daily.

There is no limit on wire transfers. However, there is a limit on paying with a card, which you can configure between 500 CHF and 25,000 CHF.

Yuh has positive interest rates, which is extremely rare. Indeed, you can get 1.00% on CHF and 0.75% on EUR and USD. And this is paid for up to 100’00 CHF balances. It is still a great feature if you often hold cash. Some people would like to use this for their emergency fund.

Now comes the expensive part: currency exchange! Yuh is charging 0.95% per currency exchange. All your operations in a foreign currency will cost you 0.95%. This fee is funny because they claim transaction fees are free in 12 currencies, but you have to pay the currency exchange, so it is not free. And if you work with currencies not included in the app, you must pay 1.50%!

For me, the currency exchange fee makes Yuh highly unattractive. Currently, there are several interesting alternatives with free payments in foreign currencies and comparable features for the banking side.

Yuh Trading fees

We then look at the trading fees of Yuh.

First, there are no custody fees. So, you will not pay anything to keep your account open without doing anything. This is a good advantage!

Then, the transaction fees are straightforward:

  • 0.5% fee for the stock market with a minimum fee of 1 CHF
  • 1.0% fee for cryptocurrencies without a minimum

Compared with other Swiss brokers, these fees are relatively cheap for small operations on the stock market. But they are expensive for large operations. For instance:

  • A 1000 CHF investment will cost you 5 CHF, which is cheap
  • A 10’000 CHF investment will cost you 50 CHF, which is expensive

On top of that, you will also pay currency exchange fees of 0.95% for your operations with currencies you do not have. For instance, if you have only CHF and want to buy something in USD, you will pay a 0.95% fee. This fee is quite expensive.

Fortunately, the dividends will stay in their original currency. So you will not lose 0.95% of all your dividends in USD, for instance.

Of course, you will have to pay the management fees of the ETFs. This is logical, and it is the same for each broker.

Overall, these fees are good for beginners investing small amounts. But for advanced investors investing large amounts, they are quickly expensive. This shows once again that Yuh is great for beginners. But you have to be careful about currency conversion fees.

Swissqoins

A unique feature of Yuh is its Swissqoin (SWQ). Swissqoin is a new cryptocurrency token that only exists within Yuh.

There are several ways of earning SWQ:

  • By depositing 500 CHF in your account when you open it, you will get 250 SWQ
  • By referring another user, you will get 500 SWQ
  • By making a trade on Yuh, you will get 5 SWQ
  • By paying with your Mastercard, you will get 1 SWQ

You can either redeem them for cash, send them to other Yuh users or keep them in your account.

Currently, one SWQ is worth 0.01 CHF (1 cent). There are 200 million Swissqoins, backed by a 2 million CHF reserve account. But this reserve account is expected to grow with time. Indeed, Yuh will reinvest 10% of its revenues into Swissqoin every month. Now, they say it is only 10% of the subscription revenues. However, there are currently no subscriptions, and there will not be any until 2022. So, I am reading that they will not reinvest anything before 2022, at least.

In 2023, they have added 100 million Swissquoins, with another million CHF in reserve. This was made because the supply of Swissquoins was running out faster than they had expected.

I do not see any value in that cryptocurrency thing. I would rather have a hard cashback or fee reduction on the operations than this gimmick.

Alternatives

In both banking and investment services, there are many alternatives available. So, we should compare these services a little.

One of the selling points of Yuh is to be a multi-currency account that you should be able to use in many countries. If you want to pay abroad for free, we can compare it with Neon (my review).

Yuh has a 0.95% currency conversion fee against 0% for Neon (but about 0.4% for the MasterCard rate). So, Neon is already better than Yuh on this selling point. And if you want to hold multiple currencies, both Revolut and Wise will be cheaper.

We can also compare with Swissquote (my review of Swissquote), the company behind Yuh, and a broker. For small operations, Yuh would be significantly cheaper. On the other hand, it would become more expensive for large operations.

And Yuh has a very limited set of investments compared to the extensive set of instruments available with Swissquote. So, I would rather use Swissquote directly. For more information, you can read my article about Yuh vs Swissquote.

Finally, if we compare it with an international broker like Interactive Brokers, Yuh falls quickly behind. Most transactions (except tiny transactions on SIX) are cheaper (and sometimes very significantly) at IB. And IB has many more features than Yuh. You can read my review of Interactive Brokers for more information.

Since Neon introduced investing features in 2023, Yuh and Neon are now very similar services. You can read my comparison of Yuh and Neon for more information.

Overall, I would only recommend Yuh for trading for beginners. I would not recommend Yuh as the primary bank. There are better alternatives. And for advanced investors, there are better alternatives as well.

FAQ

How many ETFs can you trade with Yuh?

With Yuh, you can only trade more than 50 different ETFs.

How much does a currency exchange cost with Yuh?

Yuh is charging 0.95% per currency exchange.

Is money deposited with Yuh insured?

Yes, your money will be held by Swissquote, which is a bank. It means your money will be insured for up to 100’000 CHF, the basic deposit protection as other Swiss banks.

Can you use Limit orders with Yuh?

Not yet, but they plan adding this feature in the future. In the meantime, trading in market orders works perfectly well for most investments in reputable stocks.

Can you trade in fractions with Yuh?

Yes! Yuh is among the very few Swiss brokers that allow fractional trading!

Who is Yuh good for?

Yuh is good for beginner investors that do not want to invest too much money, especially in foreign currencies. Yuh is also decent if you want to group (at a cost) many services together instead of using multiple services.

Who is Yuh not good for?

Yuh is not great for medium to advanced investors. Yuh is also not great if you want a joint account. Finally, Yuh is not great if you do many transactions in foreign currencies. For all these cases, there are better alternatives.

Yuh Summary

Yuh

Yuh is an easy and affordable way to invest in the stock market and spend money abroad.

Product Brand: Yuh

Editor's Rating:
3.5

Yuh Pros

Let's summarize the main advantages of Yuh:

  • Very easy to invest in the stock market
  • Fractional trading
  • Free EUR bank account
  • Multi-currency account
  • No custody fees
  • Cheap fees for small trading operations
  • The money is kept safe by Swissquote
  • Backed by two large institutions
  • Savings plans

Yuh Cons

Let's summarize the main disadvantages of Yuh:

  • Misleading ETF names
  • Expensive currency exchange fees
  • No access to U.S. ETFs
  • Not great for advanced investors
  • Use of structured products for trending themes
  • Cannot transfer shares to another broker

Conclusion

Great to start investing
Yuh
4.0
No account management fees

Yuh is an easy and affordable way to invest in the stock market and spend money abroad.


Use my code YUHTHEPOORSWISS to get 25 CHF in trading credits!

Pros:
  • Low fees for small operations
  • Fractiona trading in stocks
Use the YUHTHEPOORSWISS code
Code only for Swiss residents.

Overall, Yuh is a great trading platform for beginners. The app is very easy to use, and the fees are low for small transactions. If you want to start to invest and want something simple, Yuh will be great for you.

As for the banking package, the main issue is the currency conversion fee. Their currency exchange rates are very high compared to other actors in the market. This is disappointing for a multi-currency app. So, if you want a digital bank to pay abroad, you should use another bank.

Also, I think the way they name ETFs is quite misleading. Renaming ETFs is a bad idea for me and does a disservice to their customers.

To conclude, Yuh is good for beginner investors to start investing without trouble. However, if you want an excellent digital bank, you can use Neon and save on fees abroad. And if you are an experienced investor, you can use Swissquote with many more features.

What about you? What do you think of Yuh?

The best financial services for your money!

Download this e-book and optimize your finances and save money by using the best financial services available in Switzerland!

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Photo of Baptiste Wicht

Baptiste Wicht started thepoorswiss.com in 2017. He realized that he was falling into the trap of lifestyle inflation. He decided to cut his expenses and increase his income. This blog is relating his story and findings. In 2019, he is saving more than 50% of his income. He made it a goal to reach Financial Independence. You can send Mr. The Poor Swiss a message here.

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113 thoughts on “Yuh Review 2024: One app to pay, save and invest”

  1. Hi Baptiste, thank you for help when answering my previous qustion. Would like to ask you whether I understand correctly the following:
    1. When you are sending one of the 13 currencies recognized by yuh multicurrency account they will land on given currency account without any fee from the side of yuh. E.g. GBP.
    2. Then you can buy GBP shares from your GBP yuh currency account to avoid currency exchange fees.
    3. When selling these shares the value will land on yuh GBP currency account automatically, so no exchange fee.
    4. even though when buying e.g. GBP shares from GBP yuh currency account and selling them, still the fee of 0.5 percent from amount on both buy and sell side is subjected to 0.95 percent exchange fee.
    5. GBP dividents are received to GBP yuh currency account.
    Have a nice day, Maro

    1. Hi Maro.
      For 1, 2, 3 and 5 answer is Yes.
      For Q4, there is a fee of 0.5% on both buy and sell. But there is no 0.95% exchange fee if you have enough GBP in your account. This one only applies if you exchange currencies in your account. For example, because you change CHF against GBP, or because you buy shares in GBP without zero, or not enough money, in your Yuh GBP currency account. In that latter case, Yuh will make the change automatically later (with the 0.95% exchange fee).
      You can test this by yourself, for example in buying 0.0005 Bitcoin (~$34) without any money in your Yuh $ currency account.

  2. Hi Baptiste,

    thanks for your articles, you are really helpful in breaking the ice and understand the opportunities. So far I have done few share orders, no sales yet. Would like to ask you:

    1. how are the various fees applied when you are selling the share with profit vs lost.

    2. how does the taxation work? Is it necessary to submit tax declaration? Or tax is already included in buy & sell fees?

    3. Is there different taxation when selling share up to one year vs after one year?

    4. How does their trading credit work? Is it created only after executing share sales, or receiving dividends? How can one get this credit? Is it kind of bonus that can be used to cover fees/trading commissions and if not used it expires after xy months? They say after 3, 6 or 12 months – what does influence the validity period?

    When you can help with explaining on examples.

    Bests,
    Maro

    1. Hi Maro,

      1) The fees are computed on the sold value, so you will higher fees if you are selling high than if you are selling low. But I am not sure this answer your question.
      2) Yes, you need to submit tax declaration for all your stocks.
      3) Not exactly, but being too active of an investor may make you a professional investor and this would imply taxes on capital gains. The truth about Capital Gains and Taxes in Switzerland
      4) I don’t know about the time its valid. But a trading credit is like a special account that is used to pay transaction fees only.

      1. Hi Baptiste,

        1.Now I see that for US Stock 0.5% Yuh fee is already applied for buying value when buying and then on whole selling value (buying value again + capital gain).

        2.Thanks, Im checking more on taxes in your other article.

        3.1.No need to double the initial share value or increase it further, just plus one CHF from let’s say 1000 CHF invested is already considered as capital gains, right? Could see they call it exchange gain also.

        3.2 regarding private vs pro investor criteria – the classification is attributed only for given year when criteria were not met, or for all subsequent years? Just for curiosity.

        4.All right, got it.

        5.In scenario when person with swiss resident permit type B or C decides to stop living and working in Switzerland, and moves to other EU country can she/he a) continue using Yuh account as usual b) can only sell shares without buying new ones c) has to sell all shares and close yuh account or d) other.
        – And what about retirement in other EU country? How is it with tax declaration in such cases?
        – What are the benefits of opting for Interactive Brokers in case one wants to keep flexibility regarding moving to another EU potentially non EU country?
        – What would you recommend when transitioning from Yuh to e.g. Interactive Brokers, if possible to keep two Brokers certain time or all time?

        Bests

      2. Yes, going from 1000 to 1001 is a capital gain, but only when you sell. There are no capital gains if you don’t sell.
        I do not know whether they will change the classification of professional vs private each year or keep you in once you are classified as pro.
        For Yuh, it depends where you move to. They have a list of allowed countries (not all EU countries are allowed). So, if you stick within the rules, you will be able to keep your account. Otherwise, you will have to liquidate before leaving.
        I can’t speak about retirement in other countries, I don’t know anything about that.
        IB is available almost all over the world while Yuh is available in only a few countries, the benefit is clear.

  3. Hello, great article!

    I recently opened Yuh as main bank account and I use it to deposit CHF 400 each month in iShares Swiss Dividend ETF. I don’t plan on becoming an advanced investor, that’s all I do with it, pay bills, use it as a main account and invest 400 each month (sometimes even more if I happen to have money on the side). When I travel I use my Revolut to pay abroad so in my Yuh account I don’t usually have other currencies, only CHF.

    In my case do you recommend me to keep Yuh or other alternatives would be better? Thank you in advance!

    Randon

    1. Hi Randon

      For such an investment of 400 CHF each month, Yuh will be very cheap (2 CHF fee per month).
      And since you use Revolut, you will not pay the 0.95% currency conversion fee of Yuh.
      I think you are good with your setup!

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