Yuh Review 2024: One app to pay, save and invest
| Updated: |(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links)
PostFinance and Swissquote 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.
| 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
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!
- Low fees for small operations
- Fractiona trading in stocks
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.
Yuh’s main selling point is making it easy to do your everyday banking operations and invest in the stock market. Many people do not invest 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 its creation, Yuh has grown very quickly. In about two years, it reached 160.000 customers, which 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. For instance, you could receive EUR and keep it in your account. So, when you have to pay in EUR, it will directly use that balance instead of converting from CHF to EUR.
You can also do peer-to-peer transfers to other users of the application, which is good if you know other users of the app. They also have the usual features, like savings goals, which 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 have also provided support for 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. And market orders are working well.
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. Very few Swiss brokers offer this feature.
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. I recommend avoiding these products.
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.
For more information, you can look at the list of available ETFs (you may have to disable your adblocker to see them). They have a long list of available ETFs, from many providers like Vanguard, ishares and Invesco.
Another disadvantage of Yuh is that you cannot transfer your shares to another broker. So, if you want to switch brokers, 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. However, since I am not a crypto expert, I will not detail their crypto features.
Overall, Yuh has great trading features for beginners. However, it is not an app for advanced investors.
Yuh Banking fees
We start with Yuh’s banking fees.
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
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 Yuh’s trading fees.
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.
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 they are quickly expensive for advanced investors investing large amounts. 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
There are many alternatives available in both banking and investment services. So, we should compare these services a bit.
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. Yuh would be significantly cheaper for small operations. On the other hand, it would become more expensive for large operations.
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 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 is an easy and affordable way to invest in the stock market and spend money abroad.
Product Brand: Yuh
4
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:
- 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
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!
- Low fees for small operations
- Fractiona trading in stocks
Overall, Yuh is a good 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.
The main issue with the banking package is the currency conversion fee. Their currency exchange rates are very high compared to other actors in the market, which is disappointing for a multi-currency app. So, if you want a digital bank to pay abroad, you should use another bank.
To conclude, Yuh is good for beginner investors who want 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?
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I signed up mainly for their crypto. It could be the next bitcoin or one more shitcoin who knows
They will publish a white paper highlighting the innovative part of #swissqoin in June
https://mobile.twitter.com/yuh_app/status/1392815347103932420
More info about swissqoin are available here:
https://library.yuh.com/shared-images/swissqoin-distribution-memorandum-en-v1
During the period ending on December 31, 2021, Yuh will reinvest 10% of the subscription fees that holders of Yuh Accounts would have paid if all such holders had opted for the “Kiss” subscription plan.
Hi,
Thanks for the extra information! It makes more sense indeed with the 10% until the end of December 2021.
Are you investing in each coin just because it could be the next bitcoin?
Hi,
No, I only invest in projects that I believe in. For the moment mainly in ETH and Swissborg (for the yield they offer).
Their coin has potential but honestly for the moment there is not enough information about their strategy but as I don’t like credit cards and can’t take advantage of cashback, Yuh is the first to offer me something for each of my purchases. I will see if I continue to support them in the future.
For the other operations I have an account at Neon.
Great review, thanks for that! Important to also mention the timing of their investment execution. In their FAQs they mention to execute all orders placed before 4pm the same day but only between 4pm and 6pm. So if I place an order at 10am it will only be executed 6hrs later. Shouldn’t matter when investing in an ETF like VT, but when investing in crypto or individual shares this can result in missed opportunities both when selling or buying. What’s your view on that?
https://www.yuh.com/en/support/faq
Thanks for pointing that out.
This sounds horrible… Why would they not let us trade during the entire market hours, like every single broker out there. This sounds like an attempt at arbitraging these trades to minimize costs on their side.
I will update my review to reflect that fact.
The product is completely fuzzy and inconsistent, probably one the first creation of the millennial product manager generation coming now in such a position. Get prepared for the growth of such insane initiatives…
I can’t wait :P
I suppose “Yuh” is simply pronouced as “You” which is not so horrible IMHO.
Congratulations for the very clear and detailed analysis. Well done.
Thanks :)
That’s a good point. In my head, it sounds like yewww :P I may have too much (or too little) imagination!
I agree with your review, at the first sight, Yuh was really interesting and could become the first neobank with interesting fees. However, they screw their entire plan with their currency exchance of 0.95%… They should use at least the MasterCard FX rates, here it could have been really interesting.
I don’t know if I will keep my account or shut it down in 2 months, I will see.
Hi Yanikuza,
Yes, the expensive exchange rate really makes them lose to all the better alternatives.
Like Nick, I also agree with your analysis.
I had discarded Yuh from my options when seeing its announcement.
Btw, is IB a multi-currency account and if so which currencies does it support?
Thanks :)
IB is multi-currency, they support a ton of them, all major ones, but I don’t know the list. But then, you cannot really spend it directly and you do not get personal IBAN for each of your currency.
You were fast to write the article, they released last week! Nicely done.
My opinion on this is that having the 3 (bank + save + invest) in the same app is pretty smart. It’s like 3 apps in a single 1. But as you say, it’s still early and minimalist in functionalities. They probably want to test the market first. Let’s see how it goes.
Regarding the Swissqoins, I also think it’s a gimmick, like to surf on the trend of crypto. You mentioned cashback: at the current price, you have 1% cashback if you have a 2.- bill ahah. BUT: if the app works well, the price of the coin will rise, and it can be worth it. The weird thing to me is: this coin seem to only increase in value, but not decrease, how come?! It’s apparently a real token on the Ethereum blockchain, but it’s price is not fixed by supply and demand?! They say the initial supply is 200M, what happens when they are all used?
Still some points to clarify. I’ll try to get this info.
Anyway, thanks for the article ;)
Hi Arturo,
I agree that having an app instead of 2 (save does not really make sense as a single app honestly) is a great thing. But considering the cost of having two instead of one, I think it’s way too expensive.
And a good question about what will happen when all coins are used :) And a good question about pricing if it’s really a real token. Let us know if you find the answer!
Agree with you, I do not see any value in their cryto token.
Additionally, I haven’t seen any commitments that the supply would be limited to those 200 millions coins already created.
Hi Anne,
I believe it’s mentioned that the number of coins is set and will not change.
And yet they just increased the supply by another 100 mio SWQ! ;)
It seems you were right :)
But I still think that at some point, it will run out of SWQ and they will stop this.
This is the problem with privately managed tokens. All tokens, even those not implemented on a fancy blockchain, e.g., airlines miles.
They decide of the supply. They decide of their value. The rest is smoke screen.
Interestingly, the value of SWQ did not decrease with the increase in supply. This must mean that either they increased proportionally the cash pot or they plan to match when people withdraw.
As pointed out by Michel, they did indeed increase it with cash.
But they will likely run out of tokens soon. We will see what happens.
>> Interestingly, the value of SWQ did not decrease with the increase in supply. This must mean that either they increased proportionally the cash pot or they plan to match when people withdraw.
When they mint the additional 100M SWQ, they also increased the cash account by ~1.42M CHF, corresponding to the value of the SWQ at that time.
That was the right thing to do.
Totally agree with your analysis. It’s unfinished and there is better out there; neon, wise etc
Let’s see if they can make it compete with these alternatives :)
Not sure I agree with your point about US Blue Chips. For me the SP500 is closer to a blue chip index that DJIA – which is value and sector specific orientated
The DJIA has always been known to be tracking blue chips. There cannot really be 500 blue chips stock in the S&P500 index. But it’s true that the definition of blue chips itself is debatable :)