Alpian: how the referral works

What is Alpian?

Alpian is a Swiss digital private bank — meaning it holds a full Swiss banking licence, but the entire customer experience is delivered through a mobile app rather than a physical branch network. It received its FINMA banking and securities firm licence in 2022, making it one of the first new Swiss banks to win a banking licence since the post-2008 wave of fintech challengers. The pitch is that the historically high entry barrier of Swiss private banking — five or six-figure account minimums, in-person onboarding, paper-heavy compliance — gets replaced by an app you can complete in an evening.

The product mix sits in three layers. There is a current account with a Mastercard, multi-currency holdings in CHF, EUR, and USD, and standard SEPA and SIC payments. On top of that there is a discretionary investing service where Alpian’s portfolio managers handle a mandate calibrated to the user’s risk profile. And there is a self-directed investing path for users who prefer to pick their own ETFs. All three live inside the same app and inside the same legal entity, which is the practical advantage over running a separate retail bank account and a separate brokerage account.

How the referral works

The welcome bonus is split. Use the referral code PC9PFJ during onboarding and the system records the referrer; depositing at least CHF 500 within the qualifying window unlocks CHF 25 in cash credited to the current account. Starting either a discretionary mandate or a self-directed plan unlocks an additional CHF 75 in investment-fee credit, applied against the management fee on the first months of investing activity. The total advertised CHF 100 is the sum of those two halves; you do not have to complete both, but completing only the deposit step caps the bonus at CHF 25.

The code must be entered during sign-up, not after. There is no retroactive attribution, so if you skip the referral-code field on the welcome screen, you forfeit the bonus.

Who Alpian is for

Alpian fits Swiss residents who want their day-to-day banking and their investing under one roof, particularly those who would otherwise hold a regular Swiss retail account at a cantonal bank plus a separate broker account at Saxo, Swissquote, or Interactive Brokers. Bringing both into one app reduces the friction of moving cash from the deposit side to the investment side and back, and the discretionary mandate is genuinely cheaper than the equivalent service at a traditional Swiss private bank.

It is not a fit for non-residents of Switzerland — the licence and the onboarding flow are Swiss-only — and it is not a substitute for a multi-currency travel card if your priority is cheap overseas card spending. Alpian’s pricing is built around investing, not around weekend FX on holiday spending.

Regulatory posture

Alpian SA is licensed and supervised by FINMA, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority. The licence covers both banking activities and securities firm activities, which is what allows Alpian to hold deposits and run an in-house investing service under the same legal entity. Deposits are protected by esisuisse, the Swiss bank deposit guarantee scheme, up to CHF 100,000 per depositor — the statutory Swiss limit, which is the country’s equivalent of the EU’s €100,000 harmonised level.

Because Switzerland is not in the EEA, deposits at Alpian are not covered by any EU deposit guarantee scheme; the protection is purely Swiss.

Things to watch for

• The CHF 500 deposit threshold for the cash portion of the bonus has to be present in the account, not just transit through it. Withdrawing immediately after the threshold check forfeits the cash credit.
• The investment-fee credit is consumed against actual fees billed to the mandate, so it only has value if you are genuinely investing. It is not a withdrawable cash bonus.
• Investing carries market risk; past performance disclosures in the app are the binding text on returns. Nothing on this page should be read as a promise of investment outcomes.

Conclusion

Alpian sits in the rare category of “new Swiss bank” that actually got a full FINMA licence rather than operating as an e-money or asset-management wrapper. For a Swiss-resident reader who wants a single app for current account, multi-currency holdings, and a discretionary or self-directed investing path, it is a genuinely useful product. Tap through, enter PC9PFJ during onboarding, deposit CHF 500, and the cash portion of the bonus lands; start an investing plan and the fee-credit half follows.