About a month ago, I decided to open a new, modern bank account. An online bank, I figured—one without expensive branches, but with a clean web GUI and contemporary digital services.
At least, that’s what the advertising promised. And an AI even explicitly recommended this institution: Swissquote, it said, although originally established as a trading platform for stock and foreign exchange trading, now also offers completely normal accounts for everyday payment transactions.
No sooner said than done. I opened an account, received an IBAN, and ordered a free virtual debit card, which I integrated into my Google Wallet. I already used it several times to pay for small amounts in shops. Very convenient: hold your phone up to the terminal, and you’re done. I was satisfied.
I also immediately set up all my standing orders and bills for the end of the month or the first of the following month and waited for my income payment, which usually arrives on the 1st.
Well, not this month, of course. And that had consequences.
The Morning After
Early this morning, I saw an email: A payment could not be executed. Hmph.
I logged in—and saw that not a single one of the roughly one dozen payments had gone through. My regular income was late once again. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always arrive reliably on the same day.
So I asked my wife to quickly send me some money. She was happy to help: an instant transfer, and within seconds my account was back in the black.
Now the question arose: How do I reactivate the failed payments?
In the browser, I saw them all beautifully listed under “Please review.” A few were marked as “Canceled.” Why?
Ah: The “Canceled” ones came via eBill. (For my German readers: eBill is a Swiss system where companies send invoices directly into your eBanking. You can see them there, check them, and approve them with a single click. Very practical—when it works.)
I was able to reactivate these eBill invoices within the eBill system—though not on the same day, but only the next day. Fine, I can live with that.
The “Please review” payments, on the other hand, I had entered manually or scanned via QR code. I expected a “Reactivate” function. No such luck. When opening such a payment, there was only one button: “Delete.”
The Hotline Moment
I called the hotline. The support agent explained to me that these payments could not be reactivated. I would have to re-enter all of them from scratch. He was sorry, but it wasn’t his fault.
My blood pressure spiked.
Manual Hell
So, I set up two browser windows side by side:
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Left: the failed payment.
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Right: the form for a new payment.
And then began the tedious routine:
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Left: copy IBAN → right: paste
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Left: copy recipient’s name → right: paste
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Left: recipient’s address? Not displayed. Right: mandatory field.
So I consulted the AI: “Give me the address of .” Copied the address, filled it in field by field.
Next.
Second page of the form: select source account, set execution date.
Next.
Error.
No error visible. Back. Ah: A new mandatory field, “Reference number.” On the left side, it isn’t displayed. Fortunately, I still had this standing order active at my old bank and could look it up there.
And so it went, payment after payment. Some addresses I found in my contacts, some the AI knew.
At least this time, the payments were executed immediately. The balance shrank, but that was the goal.
The Moment of Pain
After everything was finally taken care of, I wanted to delete the old, failed payments.
I opened a “Canceled” payment: no “Delete” button. Of course, eBill.
I opened a “Please review” payment: found “Delete.” Clicked it.
And then a window pops up:
“Would you like to set up a new payment using the data from the deleted payment?”
AAAAHHHH!!!
Who on earth comes up with the idea to hide the reactivate function behind the delete button?! And the helpdesk didn’t even know that. Oh man…
And Now It Gets Truly Absurd
In the bank’s “Messages,” I happened to stumble upon a notification:
I had supposedly set up a payment to a Thai bank. For this, I had to specify:
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what my relationship to the recipient is
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what the purpose of the payment is
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what contractual documentation exists
And on top of that, I had to fill out the W-8BEN form from the US tax authority (IRS) to confirm whether I am subject to tax in the USA.
Huh? What does a transfer to Thailand have to do with the IRS?
I called the hotline again—the exact same support agent. He said:
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The attachment had been “forgotten” on their end.
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I had to print out the form, fill it out by hand, sign it, scan it, and send it back.
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The questions were mandated by FINMA (Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority).
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Every cross-border payment requires an IRS declaration.
Fine, then. I filled everything out (recipient is my wife, purpose: supporting the mother-in-law, no written documentation, it stays in the family).
Then I wanted to upload the form.
The Contact Form – A Chapter of Its Own
I wrote the message, selected the attachment, and clicked “Send.”
The system churned. And churned. And churned.
After 15 minutes, I was automatically logged out.
I thought the scan might be too large. So I took a screenshot and reduced it to 800 KB. Tried again.
This time, it immediately threw an error:
“Unfortunately, we could not process the transaction.”
Tried several times. No chance.
So I sent a regular email to support@swissquote.ch—without the attachment, but with a note saying I would send it separately.
A minute later, the following automated reply came back:
YOUR REQUEST WAS NOT FORWARDED!
Dear Customer,
This response was generated automatically. Your request has NOT reached our helpdesk. For security reasons, we only process requests submitted via our contact form at https://de.swissquote.com/support.
Thank you for your understanding.
Kind regards, Your Swissquote Team
YOU IDIOTS! The form doesn’t work!
So, hotline again. The support agent laughed and said:
“Yes, that’s a known issue. You have to select ‘Account Opening’ as the category. Then you can send attachments.”
Of course. How could I have missed that logic.
With that workaround, it actually worked.
Conclusion
I had thought the eBanking of this new bank would be much better and smoother than that of my old Raiffeisenbank.
As I had to learn the hard way, I was way off.
It’s clearly banana software: it ripens on the customer.
This is a personal experience report. Other customers may have different experiences.
