After just a few years on the market: Swiss neobanks have already attracted billions of dollars

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Business is growing with neobanks. The need to do everything with your mobile phone while on the go is growing and growing. Besides making payments, you can also use your mobile phone to deposit money or prepare for retirement, among other things.

Swiss neobank Yuh, as it jokingly calls its users, now has 200,000 Yuhseri. More than 80 percent use Yuh at least once a month, and a third even use the app every day. “The majority are regularly active,” says CEO Markus Schwab (46) happily in an interview with Blick. Payments are still the main focus for customers: “Two-thirds of our customers use the card, 50 percent invest through the app.”

And Yuh wants to keep growing: specifically, the neobank wants to gain 70,000 to 80,000 new customers every year. “We want to have 260,000 by the end of the year,” the boss said confidently. But the question of how fast things are moving always arises. Established banks are also reacting to the online trend.

Schwab was most affected by assets: Yuh currently manages over 1.5 billion francs. “If someone had told me that at the start of Yuh in 2021, I would have said it was a pipe dream,” Schwab said.

This is the case with other neobanks

Blick also asked other Swiss neobanks. Looks like: Yuh is in the foreground.

Neobank Neon manages 1.1 billion francs and has almost the same number of users as Yuh, with 195,000 customers. “We are growing very continuously, with around 40,000 customers a year,” says Jörg Sandrock (50), one of the four founders of Neon.

However, Alpian is not disclosing any specific figures at this time due to significant controversy. Neobank has 60,000 monthly website users and over 1200 activations each month. Total assets have roughly tripled since the beginning of the year alone.

Alpian is the only independent neobank with a banking license in Switzerland. Behind the others is a traditional bank: for example Postfinance and Swissquote in Yuh, Mortgage Bank Lenzburg in Neon.

Zak, the Bank Teller’s neobank, is also smaller than Yuh. “Our user numbers currently stand at 65,000 and are trending towards continued growth,” a spokesperson said. Client assets exceed 800 million francs.

Zak is ahead here

But Zak has a decisive advantage: “Zak is profitable for the Bank Clerk.” Other neobanks are not there yet, but they are on the right track.

Yuh’s goal is to make a profit from 2025. “I’m still confident and optimistic about that because from a purely operational standpoint, we already are,” Schwab says. Neon, which has been active since 2019, is pursuing the same goal. Alpian, on the other hand, wants to turn a profit within five years of the launch in October 2022. We are on the right track in this regard.

New products are planned

To remain attractive, neobanks are constantly working on new products and services. “We can imagine launching completely new things, like insurance, mortgages, or products for partnerships outside of classic banking,” says Schwab.

Zak will launch various digital products in 2024. The first is planned to be released in the spring, but no more will be announced. Neon already has more concrete plans: a broader offering for stocks and ETF trading will be available in 2024; Joint accounts are also planned. Other retail products are also being developed at Alpian.

Source :Blick