Wire transfers are the workhorse of business and large personal payments because they are fast, traceable and final once accepted by the receiving bank. In Switzerland, domestic transfers run on the SIX SIC system and clear within seconds for SIC instant payments. Inside the eurozone, SEPA Credit Transfers clear within one business day, and SEPA Instant clears in under ten seconds, 24/7.
Cross-border wires outside SEPA travel via SWIFT and pass through one or more correspondent banks, each of which may take a fee from the principal. For this reason, many senders use specialist providers like Wise or Revolut for amounts below CHF 10,000 — they route through local clearing rails in each country and only convert currency once, usually at the mid-market rate plus a small spread.
Wire transfers are not easily reversible. Once the receiving bank has credited the beneficiary, recovery depends on the beneficiary's cooperation. This makes wires a frequent target of business-email-compromise fraud. Always verify changes to a supplier's IBAN via a known phone number before sending.
A Geneva company pays a German supplier EUR 25,000 by SEPA Credit Transfer. The bank charges CHF 0 (the standard EUR SEPA rate inside Switzerland), the funds debit on Monday at 14:00, and the supplier sees them in their Commerzbank account on Tuesday morning.