The new most powerful entity in Switzerland – and soon universal service authority?: Raiffeisen strikes blows to attack the post office!

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With Postfinance, Swiss Post was by far No. 1 in Switzerland for a long time. At least in terms of physical presence. But the number of post offices has actually dropped – from 3,000 to just under 800. Raiffeisenbank now has the largest branch network in Switzerland, and its boss, Heinz Huber, launched an attack in an interview with CH Media newspapers.

He set his sights on the basic service provided by Swiss Post for payment processing. “From our point of view, this contract can be put out to tender,” Huber says. Raiffeisen would be interested in applying for it.

“We used to bring the prerequisites with us. Raiffeisen has the largest network of bank branches and is physically represented at more than 800 locations.» Raiffeisen also has the largest ATM network in Switzerland.

Strengthening Postfinance is undesirable

The essential service requirement obliges Swiss Post to ensure that 90 percent of the population can access payment processing services within 20 minutes on foot or by public transport. In Huber’s thoughts, Raiffeisen with his greater physical presence should now be a better partner for it.

He follows this up in an interview and says politicians won’t want to strengthen Postfinance. “The competition is already running extremely well. We don’t need another government lender.”

«Our job postings will definitely get more attention»

Huber also spoke about the collapse of Credit Suisse (CS) and its immediate takeover by UBS. “We had cash inflows from CS customers in October 2022 and March 2023.” But overall, the effects were contained. And: “Our job postings are definitely getting more attention than before.”

Now the politicians are dealing with the events. Huber demands that this gets to the root of the reasons for the decline in CS before editing. And: It should consider different business models.

Raiffeisen primarily operates domestically, without investment banking and extensive proprietary trading. So the risks are limited. “There’s no point in beating all banks on the same bar, from a regulatory standpoint,” Huber said.

Savings interest will increase later

Huber defends himself against accusations that customers feel little of the SNB’s rate hike in terms of savings interest rates. These sentences would have delayed response.

That’s because Raiffeisen still has a lot of money in fixed rate mortgages that operate at very low interest rates. “It doesn’t make business sense to raise savings rates immediately when the Federal Reserve raises interest rates.”

House and flat prices in Switzerland have so far been unaffected by the rise in interest rates. But Huber thinks that could change with a certain delay. We do not assume that real estate prices will decrease, but that the increase will slow down,” he said. (nim/SDA)

Source :Blick