Banking via smartphone is increasingly becoming the best way forward in Switzerland. But the fintech newcomers are not the ones scoring points with the clientele.
The two most popular mobile banking apps in Switzerland are not those of fintech firms, but of cantonal banks. According to an analysis conducted each year by Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU) together with sector thinktank E-Foresight, Zuercher Kantonalbank (ZKB) and Luzerner Kantonalbank (LUKB) have the most popular apps in their range, allowing users to bank via their smartphones.
Revolut Surpassed
It is a result that Martin Scholl, former CEO of ZKB, is sure to enjoy. As chair of the executive board, he always insisted that financial technology should be developed in-house. «Fintechs are still around, to be sure, and have their uses,» said the former bank manager to finews.ch recently. «But they have never taken over entire aspects of banking.»
The new report now seems to prove Scholl right. Revolut, the leading neobank in Europe and also in Switzerland, ranked in third place, along with another foreign banking app, Wise (formerly Transferwise).
The app Yuh, which is supported by Post subsidiary Postfinance and the online bank Swissquote, made it to the eighth spot. Various more or less independent applications followed a little further back: Neon (tenth place), Zak (14th place), Kaspar& (16th place), Yapeal (22nd place) and N26 (27th place).
CSX Misses Out on Top Ten
Established forces have a strong grasp on the top ten list of the most popular banking apps – the services offered by UBS, Berner Kantonalbank, the Raiffeisen group, Thurgauer Kantonalbank, and Waadtländer Kantonalbank received the most praise from the users. CSX, the once promising app from Credit Suisse, is lagging behind at 15th place.
The authors of the study identified the rankings this month using ratings from users in the respective stores from Apple and Google. Both stores offer their users a rating system from 1 (lowest rating) to 5 (highest rating). The 50 largest retail banks in Switzerland were examined, as well as various neobanks and banking apps. In order to eliminate statistical outliers due to not having enough ratings, only banks with a total of more than 100 ratings were analyzed.
Defending an Interface
Smartphone banking is far more than just a gimmick. At the end of 2022, 62 percent of logins from banking clients to online banking services were via smartphone, according to the report. For some individual banks, as many as 80 percent of logins were via smartphone. As a contact point for clients, banking apps are of the utmost importance.
Even before the neobanks appeared, the banks had a strong grasp on the interface with their clients. There are now signs that the banks were not merely able to defend this from the fintechs; but also signs that the users seem to be enthusiastic about their technical solutions as well.
