Swiss banks keep falling in a global comparison

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If you ignore for a moment the fiasco surrounding Credit Suisse, Swiss banks still have a good reputation. Most financial institutions make high profits, customers in Switzerland are satisfied and rarely change banks.

But success makes you lazy. Swiss banks seem to have really given up in one area in recent years: digitalisation. “From a digitalization standpoint, many Swiss banks do not seem to realize that they are increasingly out of touch with competition,” says Cyrill Kiefer, 51, banking leader at audit and advisory firm Deloitte.

In its fifth study on digitalization in retail banking, Deloitte compared 300 banks from 41 countries. Retail banking includes standardized business with private clients – this includes saving, paying bills or building your own home. With ten banks surveyed, Switzerland ranks only 21st. Good midfielder. A few years ago the starting position was pretty good: Switzerland was still 5th in the first Deloitte comparison in 2016.

“Organization like in the 1990s”

For the study, test customers opened real accounts at banks and tested the digital functionality of the website, e-banking and smartphone app. «Creating a new account with a Swiss bank can easily take two to three weeks. At the best digital banks, it’s done the next day,” says Kiefer. A credit card can only be ordered digitally at two of the five Swiss banks. The rate is almost twice as high among international leaders. Companies can even be registered digitally abroad.

The banking expert says there is much tighter competition between retail banks in countries like the US. Banks lowered each other’s fees – much less per individual customer than in Switzerland, after all. For the calculation to still be valid, banks need to be innovative. Among other things, by connecting and simplifying proposals. «Switzerland often lacks the necessary structures for this. Banks are still structured as they were in the 1990s. The silo mentality in individual spaces slows them down,” says Kiefer.

So far, this has had no major consequences for Swiss banks. “But things can evolve suddenly and rapidly these days. A new service needs to emerge where big tech companies are faster and banks are already under a lot of pressure to act,” says Kiefer.

Source :Blick